A Little More Comedy
by Desdemona Kakalose
Summary: Consider the fanciful notion that Jimmy might have met Edgar rather than Nny, before things went all to Hell. Perhaps the world could offer us a little more comedy and a little less tragedy. Have Edgar, will AU. Slash, Mmy/Edgar
1. Interlude

Title: A Little More Comedy

Summary: have Edgar, will AU.

Notes: This here first chapter is actually the interlude chapter from Eternity in a Pickle Jar. I found that about as soon as I had written it, I wanted keep going on and on in this universe. Solution? This. So. Let's hope I amuse you as much as I amuse myself!

-0-

The first time he saw Jimmy, Edgar Vargas had one boy in an arm-lock and another boy curled up, swearing at his feet. He didn't really get a good look at the punk in question until reinforcements came bursting up the stairs with walkie-talkies swinging, and managed to drag the two standing teens far enough apart that violence was no longer an issue. It was then, backing away from one opponent, that Edgar got his first impression of the other. One Jimmy Eurige, restrained by two more teachers, met his gaze for a single moment—all rage and spiked hair and tense, repressed fury.

Edgar was blinded.

They dragged the kid away, and one of Edgar's collegues patted him on the back offering pleased and somewhat surprised complements for the man's quick action. None of it registered, though, because his mind was still staring down the delinquent with the dark, dark eyes.

Who _was_ that kid?

The first thing he did when he got back to his office was send an email out to his friend—to use the term loosely—at the main office. He wanted to know what exactly he'd broken up that morning, and who exactly had been involved. Results proved interesting.

Fight: two against one.

Responding Party: Chad Brighton and Joe Manuel. Senior and junior respectively. History of petty misdemeanors.

Initial Aggressor: Jimmy Eurige, senior. Recently transferred to the academy and in that time accumulated three detentions and a warning for a fight just off school grounds.

Edgar leaned back in his chair, eyes fixed on the photograph. Something about the smattering of freckles and the crow-black spikes of hair had him mesmerized, and he could sense a story behind that forever-frozen expression. Hell if he could name it, but something was pulling him like a magnet and he dearly wanted to know why.

So, when the academy suggested—suggested being a loose term—that it was about time this Jimmy kid got some hands-on therapy, Edgar couldn't even pretend to complain. He simply let Damon know that he'd be busy on Monday evenings from here on out and grabbed a couple more files for some now-legitimate research.

Farther probing proved no less intriguing. His previous schools counted one public and two Christian, which implied that Jimmy had not been sent here for the same reason as most of his peers. Apparently, Mr. and Mrs. Eurige didn't much care about religious affiliation or lack thereof. If Edgar could venture to guess, he'd say that Jimmy's obviously wealthy parents had simply wanted him out of the house for one reason or another, and the Academy of Science was a good boarding school—close enough to drive to if you had time, from their isolated homestead, but far enough away to guarantee no further mingling of the family.

Fingers hovering over the mouse, Edgar debated something with himself. While far be it from him to turn down an interesting subject, that intense feeling of the day before had him still wary. There would be no inspecting of causation—he'd years ago decided against examination of anything internal in case the results were not-so favorable—but the sensation was nonetheless just familiar enough to put him on guard.

Something was afoot.

* * *

Edgar had first managed to nab a long-term job at the age of twenty-five, after spending a year as a social worker and four before that helping on and off with the local mental hospital. You could call it a sort of natural nitch, the psychology field, which stemmed from an innate fascination with problems and an equally innate sense of compassion.

He was a natural.

When he was fourteen, his mother's best friend had suffered a psychotic break in the middle of a complicated illicit affair with her boss, sending Madre Vargas down to the hospital with a basket and a paperback on what would come to be a regular trip. Edgar went along that first time, and most times after that, not because he particularly liked Madre's friend but rather because his mother had asked him to.

"Anne's crazy," Edgar had protested, thinking back to one book in particular which he'd finished a week before—_The Red Dragon_. "She's dangerous. And besides, Madre, you know I don't like her."

Mrs. Vargas had turned around from her jewelry table and looked her son dead in the eye. "I will _not_ have you insulting my friends, Edgar. Anne loves me and she's always been there for me, and now —" she sighed. "Edgar, you take care of the people you love no matter what. Anne needs me now. You're coming along because I'm not leaving you alone in the house, and that's that."

And so Edgar found himself in his first psych ward. What memories remain generally concern the lack of flowers or visitors anywhere, and the hospital scents that seemed to be thinner there than you might expect. Patients mumbling to themselves or staring glassy-eyed at the ceiling were pretty much everywhere, and he remembered thinking that someone should fix them—that surely _someone_ could fix them.

After that, the few empty shelves in the house started filling up with psychology books—everything from Freud's works to old college texts that his dad picked up at a used-book store. When he was eighteen, one of his father's clients hooked him up with a small job at the same psych ward where Anne had landed years before. That job had been hard, emotionally and physically. He remembered that his favorite nurse had left somewhere along the way, after she suffered a back injury holding down a particularly volatile patient. She never did come back.

That was about the same time his mother died. About the same time he started attending church.

If the ward ever taught him anything, it was that he couldn't handle the inevitability in its sterile walls. Edgar wasn't a weak man, but there's only so much a caring person can take before they burn out completely. The patients didn't get better. No one expected them to.

So the young man had stepped away from the profession, sinking back into the world of books. For a long time, the ward had been the only place where he really sank his nails into the world and left a mark, where people knew his name and he knew theirs. The next couple years left him cocooned in the world of literature, paper theories, hypothetical universes. Healing. And after graduation, he got a job as a social worker. That almost killed whatever he'd managed to resurrect after the ward and his mother. One particular memory stood out, of a horribly obese woman in the back of his car, screaming that the seatbelt was killing her baby.

She wasn't pregnant.

It didn't take him long to figure out that his latest job was spiritual suicide. At that point, he sat down and thought about what exactly he _could_ do, to make a difference in the world without wringing himself dry. He couldn't take the final result of mental decay, the end of the line psych wards where the incurable went uncured. He couldn't take the sheer insanity of social work, not without cracking. And then what use would he be?

But maybe… the beginning?

If he could cut into the beginning, where the problems started, he knew he could make a difference. He _was _good, after all. And he wanted to _help_; he wanted to do something, something that he could devote his life to. Make a difference. The eyes that had stared at him through hospital windows once upon a time, there was no escaping that. And with such things in mind, Edgar set a number of balls rolling—one of which landed him with a rather unique position at the fanciest school in town.

Academy of Science—the only anti-denominational school Edgar'd ever heard of. That was their hook, the atheist gig, with a liberal dose of _boarding school_ appeal and high academic standards. It was really a fluke that he ended up working there right out of college, mostly owing to a rash of suicides and one panicked man with the stack of resumes. They needed a councilor. In the end, everybody gets lucky at some point during their life and Edgar figured it was about time he got his turn anyways.

So, the office was nice. The class he'd picked up last year—psychology class, of course—was unexpectedly fun, and there was his little _side project_, and he was making good money all things considered. But.

But.

Something niggled at the back of his head, every so often—a kind of fuzzy nonentity lurking in that place where conscious fades into subconscious mind. It was a lot like feeling empty. He couldn't remember it from before his mother's death, but hey, maybe he'd just forgotten. The memory is a rather unreliable machine. So the sensation caught up with him between classes, drank tea with him after the last bell rang, took up that empty seat in his apartment, sat beside him in church. It rested cold fingers on his chest in the darkness, when he tried to sleep and let reality go. Life was good, other than that, but…

As content as Edgar Vargas was, and as lucky as he had been, the sensation—more of a _lack_ than a something—would not rest. A life without it seemed, by this point, beyond even fantasies. Maybe if he knew what the heck it was or where it came from, but at the time, he was basically clueless.

And so, the most startling thing about his first run-in with Jimmy had been that, at the moment when their eyes met, how _not_empty everything felt. The change in perception was as if he had been watching life through a widescreen, and suddenly the boy with the eyeliner and the dark, dark eyes came along and flipped it to full screen.

So you can understand if he was curious. And you can understand if he might have wanted, just a little bit, to have that full screen view back again. There was a problem here, a puzzle, and Edgar was good at those.

Edgar was a natural.

* * *

Monday arrived bright and tense, for Edgar at least, and he avoided talking with his coworkers for the better part of the day just in case they might let something slip that he didn't want to hear. Apparently Jimmy was free seventh period, which put Edgar in the interesting position of counseling during teaching hours. The appointment was scheduled for half way through the period, meaning that Edgar was duty-honor-compulsion bound to spend every free minute before the kid's arrival cleaning and reexamining papers and generally trying to prepare for whatever might fly his way.

Nothing would have prepared him anyways.

The teen came bursting through his door at ten minutes past two, early, boots pounding on the tile like irritated hammers. He marched down the rows of desks and threw himself into the empty seat across from his new councilor, scowled and threw his boots up on the tabletop. Edgar raised a brow. In the back of his head, he realized his heart rate had just sped up and his vision was a touch fuzzy around the edges- Adrenaline. Interesting.

"What an impressive set of manners you have there," the older man said, pushing the—rather nice—pair of shoes off his desk.

The teen snorted. "Manners are for pussies."

With a quick sleight of hand, Edgar hid the rosary he'd been worrying just before Jimmy burst in. Old habits die hard, and he'd always figured that you should never discard something useful anyway. "Well then," he replied, "allow me to drag you down to my effeminate level. I'm Mr. Vargas—Edgar Vargas. Pleased to meet you."

Jimmy eyed the proffered hand with blatant suspicion. "You already know who I am. Fucking file's on your desk."

The teacher pushed his hand out a little farther. "Psychology lesson for the day: the point of an introduction isn't just to tell me your name; it's to give me a taste test of your personality. The handshake..." he smiled, "...is to make sure you're unarmed."

That must have thrown the kid a bit off kilter, because he tentatively took Edgar's hand and shook. A little jolt passed through the skin, racing back to his central nervous sytem for another good hit of adrenaline. Absolutely fascinating. He had a bit of insight, right then, that he might have taken one step too deep into his own problems, which was a place he'd tried very hard to avoid. Fortunately or unfortunately, there was no backing out now regardless.

"Excellent," the older man murmured. "And now that I'm certain there's nothing sharp in your hands, maybe we can get down to why you're here?"

Body language says a lot more than words do—at that moment, Jimmy's whole body basically folded in on itself. Judging by the crossed arms and legs, this was going to be one tough nut to crack. Something about him reminded Edgar of a dog from his old neighborhood, one of the strays. He'd spent weeks one summer feeding it, slowly gaining its trust, only to have it balk and never return on the day when he finally tried to pet it.

He hoped Jimmy would be a little easier.

"Now, you took on two opponents at once in that fight the other day, so of course I'm obligated to ask you if you have any particular suicidal tendencies. These things have been known to start small."

Jimmy looked at him like he was crazy. "You're just gonna _ask_ me that?"

"That's a no?" Edgar made a note to himself. "You don't strike me as the type."

"What kinda psychiatrist _are_ you?"

Ah, now there's a question. Edgar looked up and caught his guest's eyes. "I am whatever you need me to be. Some people need parents, some people need enemies, some people just need a hand. I'm good at what I do."

It wasn't hard to tell that Jimmy was a little intrigued despite himself.

"So, say they need somethin' you can't give them?"

"Generally, I _can_. But, I do try to avoid the pharmaceutical venues, and we don't go in for Freudian interpretations around here."

"Freudian?"

"Sex and violence."

The student laughed out loud—the sound was slightly _off,_the kind that might raise hairs on your neck with the right background music. "But that's exactly what I need! So how'r you gonna help me out with that?"

Now it was Edgar's turn to scowl. "Fighting is what got you sent here in the first place. I'd venture to say that more of it won't do you any good."

"How 'bout the sex then?" Jimmy pressed, more interested now. "Hook me up with some fine ass? Or…" he half leered over the desk between them, "would you take care of it _personal_ like?"

Edgar picked up his desk-calendar and threw it at Jimmy's head. "Do you comprehend the fact that I'm a teacher?"

"That's not a no!" the boy crowed, leaning forward. "You know what? I bet you're gay. Y' look gay. Your desk is way too neat and you've got a manicure. Ever screw a student?"

Edgar felt his face heat up like a stovetop. "I certainly have not, would not, and will not. Also, I'll thank you not to make inquiries into my personal life unless it concerns your therapy somehow. And I'm not gay," he added as an afterthought.

"Suuuure you aren't. What, don't want anybody to know? I can keep a secret, Mr. Vargas. I'm _good _at keeping secrets. Does your daddy know? He ask about your _girlfriend_? Nobody tells their father anythin', yeah? Bet he has no idea."

"Personal inquiries," Edgar repeated, narrowing his eyes. "Anything else you want to ask me, before I send you down to the deputy's office for disrespecting a teacher?"

"Deputy doesn't scare me," Jimmy laughed. "I'm not gonna be like those other kids you work with. 'M not half as easy to read, an' there isn't a fuckin' thing you can do for me anyways."

"Is that so?" Edgar asked. He reached into his bag and pulled out a notepad. "Alright then. Jimmy Eurige, age eighteen. Gay or bisexual, suffering emotional strain, has father issues. Past suicidal thoughts, though none currently."

"What the fuck?" his student demanded, standing up quickly. "Where the hell'd you get that shit?"

"Also, desperate need for acceptance," Edgar added, setting down his pen. He looked up at Jimmy, a sardonic smile on his face. "Do you think I'm wrong?"

"Course you are," the teen answered hotly. "You're a fuckin' quack too."

"Then I'll see you Friday afternoon, and then on Monday. That is, if you want to prove me wrong."

Jimmy looked at him, the picture of a stunned kid. His black eyeliner formed an 'O' around his wide eyes, nicely matching his slack jaw. The teacher packed away his notes and allowed himself a grin, thinking of all the interesting—and doubtlessly annoying—things that were to come. He was looking forward to it. Oh yes, he was looking forward to it.

"I don't know what you need, yet," he remarked, looking up again, "but I assure you that when I find out, you won't say no."

"Uh…" After a second, Jimmy visibly shifted back into his usual asshole-nonchalance. "Whatever. Here's hopin' what I need is a good hard fucking, eh Mr. Vargas? Sure wouldn't say no to that."

As Jimmy strode out the door—where did the boy learn to swish his hips like that?—Edgar decided he was going to need a whole new set of rules for dealing with this particular kid. While that had actually gone quite well, and he was still coming down off the (inexplicable) adrenaline high, there was no doubting that this wasn't going to be like anything he'd experianced before. He was going to need a whole new set of reflexes.

He was also… going to need a better come back than "I'm not gay."

* * *

In the teacher's lounge, Tuesday, Edgar had a conversation with Angela. History teachers are an interesting breed, and Angela Fisher happened to be running in that theme—as if the average Academy instructor wasn't strange enough by nature. She was also about the same level of jerk that Edgar had come to expect from the universe.

"So, Edgar," she started, sidling up beside him.

"Yes?"

The man made a grab for the sugar, noticing too late how very low the stock was. Angela beat him to it, snatching up the last two packets for her fruit salad—honestly, who put sugar on fruit salad? Edgar stared morosely at his own unsweetened tea.

"I heard you're taking on _The_ _Darkness_."

Edgar looked up, puzzled. "The what now?"

"The Eurige kid," Angela qualified, pouring sugar over her cantaloupe. "Heard some of his pinhead friends call him that a while back. His car parks next to mine—one of these days, he's gonna scratch the paint and I'm gonna scratch his eyes out."

That was… interesting, Edgar thought. "So you know him."

"Yeah. He's got my sixth period. He isn't stupid, but he's damn near close. Spends the whole time arguing with Clarissa."

"Williams?"

"Yeah, her. Think you know what his problem is?"

Obviously, client confidentiality meant nothing to the woman. Though Edgar could imagine that he'd be just as interested in her place—who, after all, could resist the puzzle that was Jimmy? Not to mention, there was a kind of black charisma, something twisted and compelling about the boy with the dark, dark eyes.

"I've only had one meeting with him," the male teacher replied, aloud, "and technically, I'm not allowed to tell you anything he says."

Angela sniffed. "Not like you owe him anything. Kid is a bad influence on the whole damn school, if you ask me. He got into a fight with Brad _Olsen_."

"The, uh, the one in sewing club?"

"Yes," his coworker replied, moral indignation thick and pungent. "Hate crime, I'm sure of it."

"Er—" Edgar grabbed his cup of bitter tea and headed back for his room, "—well, it was certainly _some_ kind of hate."

But personally, he figured it had a lot more to do with a proclivity for pink polos than sexual preference.

Those polos annoyed him a little too.

* * *

Friday afternoon, Edgar was humming the theme to _Moonlighting_ when Jimmy burst in the door and fell into the seat across from him. A confidential file quickly found itself deposited in a random drawer.

"So how come you don't have one of those couch things?" the teen demanded right off, sliding on one fishnet glove.

Edgar shrugged. "Once again, too Freudian. What we do here isn't worth much unless I can see you."

Jimmy kicked back in his chair, managing to look quite at home in someone else's office. "So, I'm guessin' you prefer missionary."

Edgar almost responded with an _I'm not evangelist_. Then he took a second look at the smirk directed his way and groaned. "You really are a teenage boy, aren't you?"

Holding up his hands, the student replied, "I'm just studying up for when you decide to take me up on my offer."

"What offer?"

"Wait, wait," Jimmy pointed a finger, "haven't got there yet." The boy slid forward and leaned across the table, chin resting on his hands. Something amused sparked in his eyes. "So, Teach," he said with absurd formality, "wanna fuck me into the floor?"

"No!" Edgar shouted, exasperated.

"No floor? Fine, mattress then. My place or yours?"

"I'm not going to sleep with you, Jesus Christ!" The older man knocked his patient upside the head with the nearest book. It happened to be a copy of _Pride and Prejudice_. "What part of 'not gay' and 'ethical code' do you not understand?"

"How about the whole concept?" Jimmy shot back, grinning.

Edgar narrowed his eyes. "You're just doing this to distract me, aren't you?"

"Nah," the younger man responded, his smirk impossible to read, "I'm just a bitch for authority."

Edgar came very close to beating his head against the computer screen. "You're a clever little twit, I'll give you that."

A fleeting, mildly surprised look told him that not many other people would agree.

* * *

Monday afternoon, they discussed Jimmy's parents.

"Dad? Yeah, he wasn't too happy when I tried to run away. Or maybe it was 'cause I stole his car? I dunno, I never asked him."

Edgar had a cup of tea in his hands—long island tea, but sweet nonetheless—and a notepad open at his elbow. In practice, he wrote very few notes during an interview, as it tended to stunt the natural flow of conversation and it made interaction feel artificial. Besides, it had been clear since the first day that Jimmy needed a very light touch, very informal. Thus, Edgar put up with all the jabs at his sexuality and the come-ons that usually followed. After a while, the rhythm started to feel natural.

"How far did you get?" Edgar asked, peering over his tea.

"About a town away," Jimmy shrugged, eyeing the cup between him and his councilor. "Ran outta fuckin' gas, if you can believe it. Man, if I'd just remembered to fill'er up before I left, who the Hell knows where I'd be?"

"Lying in a ditch somewhere, no doubt." Edgar took sip of his tea, savoring the faint alcoholic taste as it sapped the tension out of his muscles. It was a Pavlovian response at this point, because his tolerance was far too high for a cup of laced tea to make a difference—the flavor was merely comforting. He'd had a bit of a rough day.

"Yeeeah _no_. I can fuckin' take care of myself."

"Regardless, there are a number of factors you appear not to have considered. Cash flow being one, and then quickly followed by car breakdowns, sickness, lack of destination, and the high murder count in this part of the state. Also, might I mention the homeless…?"

Jimmy changed the subject. "The hell is in your cup, Mr. Vargas?"

"…_Tea_."

"What, you English or somethin'?"

"My mother was southern. It happens to be a family tradition."

"So's marryin' bimbos," Jimmy replied, jerking a thumb towards himself. "But y' don't see me chasin' blond twats 'round the school."

Edgar ignored the profanity, a task becoming easier all the time. "That's because you're gay, Jimmy."

"Look who the fuck is talkin'," Jimmy spat back. "For your information, I like a good pair of tits as much as the next guy."

"Then why the lack of bimbos?" Edgar inquired, sensing something important.

"Just 'cause it's a family tradition doesn't make it smart. The stepmother proved that well enough for me. So, seriously, that's not tea is it?"

Fair trade was fair trade—and somehow, for all his delinquency, the kid didn't seem like the type to turn somebody in. Maybe Edgar was making a bad call, but he really wanted to trust the teen across from him. Why, he couldn't say, he only knew that he would be almost heartbroken if Jimmy turned out to be less trustworthy than he was guessing.

"It is tea," he muttered, "it's just not _all_ tea."

Jimmy looked a touch impressed. "Look who's breakin' the rules _now_, Mr. Ethical Code. Gonna let me have some?"

Edgar raised a brow. "You are _definitely _not legal."

"I'm legal in Mexico," the student protested, making grabby motions.

"We aren't _in_ Mexico, are we?"

"Well, no… but it's frickin' _tea_for cryin' out loud. B'sides, the moral ground's all the same anyways—if I'm old enough in one geographical location, I oughta be old enough in all of them."

"That's not a bad argument, actually. But you still can't have any."

Fishnetted hands clasped in front of him, Jimmy affected a disturbingly innocent look. "Please, Mr. Vargas? I won't tell no one, you know that."

Edgar looked down at his drink. In actuality, his own father had given him wine when he was fifteen, claiming that it was a Mexican custom—personally, he thought it was just his dad trying to finish off the bottle. But, Edgar had turned out alright, more or less, and it was kind of hypocritical to take the high ground on this one.

"Fine," Edgar sighed, holding out his cup.

Jimmy snatched the thing up and drank the rest, grinning like a Cheshire cat. Well, obviously he wasn't exactly new to the _aqua vida_, if that was the speed he could drink at. Edgar put a finger on the rim and told his student to slow down, at least _try_ to enjoy the taste. Jimmy gave him a look but complied, staring out the window and into the gray afternoon.

And Edgar kind of hoped that the moment would never end.

* * *

Time passed like that for a while. Mondays and Fridays, after school, Edgar slowly picking through the layer upon layer of motivation cupped in Jimmy's skull. He learned about the kid's mother, what little he could remember: she'd been Mr. Eurige's business partner, been there when he broke into the dealership trade back in the early eighties, and owned half the partnership too. She had some old money, enough to make the dream possible back when the two were just friends with some big plans and a passion for cars. Apparently, Mr. Eurige had told that story often, before he met his second wife.

Edgar learned about the student body back home, particularly the way they'd treated his patient—some of the stories came in an ironic wrapping, some of the stories came in tattered tones of repressed fury. The world that Jimmy was born in might have been a nice one, but the world that he grew up in was a pretty ugly place. The sort of place that the Columbine kids might have been familiar with.

And Edgar learned about Carmella, Hansel and Gretel's stepmother come again. He got the low down on everything from her fake nails to her two-face attitude. Hate was thick in every syllable. But though he got the full story of Mr. Eurige and Carmella's first meeting, even the unpleasant Christmases and the car that should have been the kid's, Edgar couldn't help but feel that something was missing. And judging by the way Jimmy danced around certain topics, the subtle fury when he talk about her, it was something big.

Of course, everything was tit for tat—for the mother, Edgar traded stories of his own. He talked about the tea she used to make and the stories she would tell from Cuba, which _her _mother had told to her. He talked about how bleak everything had been after she died, how he was pretty sure that her years of working with ghetto schools had worn her down to the point of cancer.

For the middle school and high school stories, he traded his own: the one girlfriend he'd had, how everybody pretty much ignored him, how sometimes he kind of wished that people would hate him because it would be better than the goddamn _invisibility_.

For Carmella, he traded a promise not to talk to anybody about anything, not even the principal. He traded insults, a blind eye, and a whole lot of genuine concern.

Mostly, he was lucky that Jimmy liked to talk about himself so much.

A couple months passed. Somewhere in the middle of November, they both stopped watching the clock. It was a pretense anyways, seeing as Edgar wasn't paid by the hour and neither of them had anywhere to go on a week night. And so, December arrived.

* * *

"Look, I'm just saying he's a creep," Damon shot back, exasperation thick in his voice.

He sat in the chair opposite Edgar, tapping a binder with a nervous finger. Edgar had long ago learned to ignore those tics, realizing that they were just a part of the boy's demeanor—always moving, talking, thinking. No patience. That was alright, though, because Edgar had patience enough for them both. And he really liked Damon. A _lot_. So he could put up with anything for the sake of their unusual friendship.

Right now, though, he was at the edges of that patience. "And _I'm_ just saying that you shouldn't judge people so quickly."

Damon's dark brown finger stopped mid-tap. "I'm not doing anything unreasonable. Have you seen the way he looks at people? It's like he's trying to figure out where to stab you first—or worse, what you'll taste like with barbeque sauce. No joke, Edgar, that guy is bad news."

"He's been through some bad stuff," Edgar replied, turning back to his folders. "He's got a right not to trust people too easily… and he is strange, I'll admit. But he's not dangerous."

Damon stood up, fist clenched around his binder. "I know you like him, for whatever reason, but I don't want you to end up regretting anything. It's your job on the line if he pulls something—and I don't trust him. I don't like the way he looks at me. Jimmy is—"

"I'm what?"

Edgar and Damon both turned to the doorway, where Jimmy himself was leaning up against the frame. His eyes were narrow, and his arms were crossed over his chest tightly, and there was something disturbing about the way the hall lights pushed against his silhouette. Edgar figured, in the back of his head, that he ought to turn on some lights in the room now.

Damon glared at the boy in the door. "Nothing," he muttered, teeth clenched. With a quick look back to the outside world, the darker boy leaned close and whispered, "Watch your _back _for godsake, Edgar."

"You don't believe in God," Edgar whispered back, retrieving his good humor.

Damon stood up and tried to smile in return. "Won't stop me from coming by tonight. Five? Heard Rogers is out today."

"Five," Edgar agreed, looking back at the lighter boy in his doorway. Somehow, he was more interested in his new guest than his side project. Odd. Typically, it was the highlight of his week… well, it _had_ been in any case.

Damon walked out as Jimmy walked in, their shoulders bumping in the middle. The glares sparked like flint on flint, sending momentary fires blazing through the room. The exchange made Edgar uneasy, particularly when Jimmy looked back at his nervous teacher and grinned. Damon tossed a suspicious look over his shoulder as he disappeared into the hall.

"Doesn't like me too much," Jimmy noted, tossing himself into the recently vacated seat.

"You don't exactly go out of your way to be likable," Edgar pointed out, still somewhat uncomfortable.

"True 'nough. Still, 's got no business lookin' at me like that. Acts like I killed his fuckin' cat. Anyways, what's this thing tonight?"

Edgar smiled again, a little more at ease now. "A little venture I've got going on the side. It's kind of a secret… it could probably get me fired, too. Damon's been coming by since September, and he's been really cool about the whole thing."

Jimmy grunted at the mention of his fellow student. "Fired, huh?"

Edgar nodded. "It's kind of… religious. Actually a lot religious. You'll understand if I want to keep it under wraps?"

Jimmy looked like he was going to protest, but his expression crumpled in the middle of the first syllable and his hands balled into fists. "Shit," he muttered, "I feel fuckin' terrible."

The older man leaned over his desk, reaching out for the teen's forehead. "Are you sick?"

He batted the hand away. "I dunno, maybe. I'll be fine. What you wanna talk about today?"

Though he wanted to ask why Jimmy had come by if he felt that bad, Edgar kept the question to himself. Partly because he thought he knew the answer, partly because Jimmy would just lie anyways. "Well," he started, hoping to distract his student, "how about you tell me what you were planning when you tried to run away. I'm curious. Where were you going?"

The kid looked interested now, whatever pain was creeping over him forgotten for the moment. The reasons for his attempted escape, _escape_ being Edgar's term, were just vague enough to raise more questions than answers. But the plans? As it turned out, Jimmy had a pretty solid plan for the where and the how.

"So I figured I'd come here, eventually," Jimmy finished, looking over Edgar's shoulder and out the window. "It's a decent big city, and some of the people I new back home knew people up here. Goth network, y'know. Thought I'd get some shitty job an' rent some shitty apartment… eh, maybe live out of my car. Probably the second one, since I wanna be able to leave if I wanna."

"So…" Edgar rested his head in his hands, "you basically ended up just where you wanted to be, but with a decent mattress instead of a car."

A visible wave of pain swept over the kid's features, and then subsided. "Yeah, funny huh? I don't like school too much, but whatever puts some miles between me and Carmella, I'm cool with it."

They talked for a while longer, performing their usual dance around the real subject—Edgar tugging him towards the problem, Jimmy sidestepping into something else. One of these days, Edgar was going to put all the pieces together, but for now all he had was a hand full of ideas. He admitted readily that he was not doing this for the school anymore—if he ever had been—and these days, he was just indulging his curiosity.

And, ah, perhaps enjoying the company.

At four o'clock, Jimmy halted in the middle of a rant about the local age limits and curled into a kind of ball, bent over at the waist. Edgar stood up quickly and made his way around, dropping to the boy's level. Damnit, the nurse left at two-forty. It was four now.

"Jimmy, you live on campus, right?"

The boy groaned an affirmative, and Edgar wrapped one hand around his wrist—then pressed the other to his forehead. Fever. Damnit. It must have just kicked in fully, or he would have felt some of the heat when Jimmy first mentioned feeling ill.

"Can you stand?" Edgar asked, taking away the now uncomfortably warm hand.

Jimmy nodded.

"What are your symptoms?" the older man murmured, pulling his student to his feet.

"…Headache… really cold… feel fuckin' disgusting…" Jimmy tightened his grip on Edgar's hand, leaning into the offered shoulder. "Shit. All up on you an' I can't even enjoy it."

"Well, your hormones haven't quite given up so I suppose you can't be too badly off."

They struggled for a moment to balance the new center of gravity and then left the room, making a slow way down the corridor. If Jimmy had just gone back to his room when he started feeling bad, this wouldn't be necessary—but then, that was just typical stubbornness, Edgar supposed. And it was better that he cracked in Edgar's classroom than out with some of his delinquent friends. "Friends" being another loose term, from what he'd gathered.

At the front of the school, Edgar spent a minute fumbling for his set of key before the door flew open in front of them. On the other side, Principal Rogers wore a matching mask of surprise.

"Mr. Rogers!" the teacher exclaimed, automatic. "I thought you were out today!"

"Well I came back," his boss replied, shortly. "Why are you latched onto that student, Mr. Vargas?"

Edgar felt his face go almost as hot as Jimmy's. "Er, he's sick, you see. I'm taking him back to his dorm."

Rogers gave him an 'oh really?' sort of look, but Edgar had pushed his student out the door and scrambled after him before any further questions could be asked. Unfortunately, Edgar had a tendency to look like he was guilty even when he was cleaner than an obsessive compulsive's apartment. He'd give some kind of report later, when he wasn't frazzled and Jimmy wasn't giving him the most amused look he'd ever seen on a sick kid.

Immeasurably later, with some time-outs for the ill party in the middle, the two men wound up on Jimmy's threshold, searching for a key.

"Hide it," Jimmy was muttering, "different place every day. Snot nosed little… fuckers, got in one too many times. Stole my… goddamn text books."

"Is that why you're failing?" Edgar responded, plucking the key triumphantly out of the stair-rail.

The kid gave his best attempt at a laugh. "I'd fail either way…" he sucked in a breath, "…just this way, I got an excuse."

The door swung open easily and Edgar took his student by the arm, pulling him into the dorm carefully. Inside was about what you'd expect from a teenage boy, leaving the details up to the more imaginative. Edgar was more of the clean sort himself, so he ended up dragging Jimmy's now near-useless body back into the bedroom the long way, avoiding the worst patches of mess.

"You need me to stay here?" the older man asked, shoving a mess of clothes and detritus off the bedspread.

"Nuh-uh," the kid managed, crawling into his bed. It was weirdly cute. "Come back sometime… not sick… make it up to you…"

Edgar decided _not _to take that as some kind of innuendo—though knowing Jimmy, he'd be half dead and still propositioning people. He pulled the covers up over the kid, flashing back to his own teen years. Not pleasant flashbacks, since at this age Edgar had been well on the way to his current orphaned state. When he was eighteen, he'd been tucking his mother into a hospital bed.

"Too bad I… messed up your ev'nin'…" Jimmy muttered, about as close to apologizing as he'd ever been.

"It's alright, it's—" Edgar cut himself off. No, this was not _his job. _There was no reason he had to help, no obligation; he did it because he wanted to. "It's fine. And hey…" The older man remembered his unexpected meeting with the principal, "…if you hadn't sent us out into the lobby when you did, I wouldn't know Rogers is back in town. Speaking of which, I need to call Damon, let him know we aren't meeting tonight."

Edgar smiled down at the kid, the kid with pale skin turned fever-pink and dark, dark eyes unfocused from pain. He just looked like a child right now. He wasn't a child, not in the usual sense that an eighteen-year-old was, but for now the unwarranted years had melted away.

"Hey, who knows," Edgar whispered, "if it weren't for you, my secret might not be much of a secret come tomorrow."

Outside the bedroom, he looked around at the dorm and at the bizare shape of his life with a sort of amused sigh. He supposed some things just had to be.

* * *

Christmas break was just a day away when Jimmy burst in the door to Edgar's office—by this point, the kid and the door were close personal buddies—bitching about his plans for the holiday. Between the curse words, Edgar was able to pick out something about him not wanting to go home. And also, something about popcorn.

Handing his student a cup of tea, Edgar thought back to all the things he'd been told. He thought about the things he _hadn't_ been told. He thought about how Damon was going with his family to New York, how full and impersonal his church got this time of year, how he was going to have to visit his parents' graves before New Years.

Edgar pulled off a sticky note and scribbled a number on it, pressing it into Jimmy's leather-gloved hands.

"My number," he said, almost wistful. "Call me if you get bored… if anything happens with your family. I spend Christmases at home, so I'll get your call."

Jimmy looked at him. The number slipped into his pocket, and after a moment of silence, he managed a 'thanks' and walked back out the door.

It was the first time he'd ever thanked anybody for anything, to Edgar's knowledge.

* * *

Jimmy called him almost every day, complaining and talking about how he never thought he'd _wish _to be back at school but what do you know? And sometimes, Edgar thought he might have heard something in the kid's tone that was shakier than usual… it might have been the connection.

But he _was _suspicious.

* * *

In late January, Jimmy left his backpack in the office one afternoon. Somebody called him on his brand-new cell phone and he went dashing out of the room, calling something about tomorrow over his shoulder.

So, for about ten minutes, Edgar sat in his office, staring at the backpack. What to do with it? He couldn't just leave it in here over the weekend, but he didn't like the idea of leaving it outside Jimmy's door—if they stole his binders, whoever they were, they'd surely steal his bag. The key, he'd been told, was hidden somewhere new every day, so it wasn't like he could get inside the dorm even if he was okay with that scenario.

Then a thought occurred to him.

He'd always had a problem with fixation—a thought occurred to him and then there was nothing to do but roll with it. So, blinded to any other option, Edgar found himself picking up the backpack and heading out to his car.

Jimmy'd told him where he went after school, where all his delinquent, Goth/punk not-friends hung out in their free hours. It was worth a try, he supposed. It wasn't till he was about halfway to the mall that poor Edgar realized he could have just held onto the bag until the next morning to drop it off—and by then, he figured he might as well go through with this plan.

Edgar parked and slid out of his car, troublesome artifact swung over one shoulder. Now, where did he say it was…?

The cluster of kids—the oldest one probably a sophomore in college—tucked into the alley outside a theater hardly noticed Edgar approach, not surprising since they were pretty much focused on the fight going on further down the alley.

The one standing beside Jimmy happened to glance back, spotted the advancing form and elbowed his companion in the ribs.

"Think he wants you," the stranger said, gesturing with a smoking cigarette.

Jimmy turned around, nearly choking when he saw the older man.

"Who's that?" one of the others asked, this one with more studs than a piece of machinery.

"Uh…"

Edgar looked from Piercings to Cigarette and back to Jimmy. What colorful company… "You left your stuff back at my place," Edgar explained, cocking a brow. "I thought I might as well try to get it back to you."

"The fuck're you?" demanded Cigarette, sounding more curious than anything else.

"None of your goddamn business," Jimmy cut in, evidently finding his voice again. "Uh, thanks Edgar. Can I talk to you for a sec?" The boy pulled him away from the main group, scowling. Behind them, it sounded like somebody was winning the impromptu battle.

"You should _not_ be here," the student muttered, tugging at his fishnets. "These guys find out you're a teacher, it ain't gonna be pretty. They can barely keep from killin' each other, I don't even wanna think about you an' me."

Edgar glanced back at the motley crew. "They aren't the most social people, I take it."

Jimmy snorted. "You're just lucky you're wearin' black today. I mean, I 'preciate you bringin' me my stuff, yeah? But I got a rep an' you got a nice face. Let's see if we can both keep our assets in order."

Somebody called out to Jimmy- "Hey, you're gonna miss out on the good shit if you don't get your ass back here!"

"Chico's my man," Jimmy explained, apparently talking about Cigarette, "'s got an eye out for my interests. Hold on, man," he called back, "just give me a minute!"

"Dude, talk to your fucktoy later! We got a limited supply!"

Edgar looked at Jimmy. Jimmy looked at Edgar. He'd been here for less than five minutes and already God was dousing him with irony. "Are you going to tell them I'm not gay?"

Jimmy shrugged, a horrible look of amusement lurking in his eye. "Round here? You don't have to be." He leaned in close, almost as tall as Edgar himself. "Sooooo… no. I think I like this version of things better. Wanna give me a kiss before you go?"

Edgar glanced back the little crowd behind them, an idea taking shape. "The good shit. It's drugs, I presume?"

The kid looked thrown. "Uh, maybe? I don't think I oughta be tellin' a teacher that."

That snap-decision making took over again, and the older man noticed his heart beating abnormally fast now. "I'll tell you what. You promise not to have whatever they've got over there… and I'll give you that kiss."

Jimmy's eyes went wide. "No way. You serious?

Edgar looked his student over. Moral codes, lawsuits, and labels all went spinning past him, leaving two things in their place: one, fear for Jimmy's body, knowing the sorts of things that real drugs do to people. And two, the adrenaline buzz rushing through his own veins, the inexplicable high and the wonder of what Jimmy's lips would feel like.

"I'm serious," he replied.

The kid grinned, all teeth. "You got yourself a deal."

* * *

About a month later, Jimmy was digging through stacks of graded tests while his councilor searched for a moonpie underneath the contents of his inbox. He couldn't remember the last time his office had been this messy, though it might have been during his first semester at the Academy. He'd been a little frazzled, the first time around.

"What? Jamie Nox? The hell did _she_ end up with an A?"

Edgar plucked the stack of papers from his companion's grasp. "Since she studied for it. I wish you wouldn't belittle my students like that. You know, they haven't done anything to deserve it."

Jimmy scowled and slipped the missing moonpie out of nowhere. "They just haven't had a chance yet. Not everybody's as nice as you, Mr. Vargas. Think you'da learned that by now."

"Look," the teacher said, grabbing the pastry too, "I know we long ago gave up the pretence of having actual therapy sessions, but I have to break form on this one. Prejudice is nasty business, Jimmy. You say people judge you before they even talk to you—well, guess what you're doing to the rest of the world. It's not good. Hypocrisy is bad enough, but you're not even giving anyone the chance to prove you wrong."

The younger man narrowed his eyes. "Uh-huh. An' while that may be true, you don't seem to've thought about why exactly I'm closing shit out. Can't trust people, Mr. Vargas. A chance at some lousy interpersonal contact just isn't worth the risk of getting' burned. An' I been burned plenty enough for a good long time."

"Then why are you sitting here, Jimmy?" Edgar took his own seat, feeling the old chair give under him.

A sort of wary look crossed over Jimmy's face. "You really gonna ask me that? Shit man, I don't know, you just kinda snuck up on me. Made a good first impression. I. I dunno. Can't explain it, I guess you just sorta struck me as different. Plus, you're fuckin' _hot, _in a librarian-ish way."

A clock ticked and Edgar sighed. Well he couldn't call the kid out on that, considering he himself had no idea why they got along so well. The fact that Jimmy trusted him at all—despite his misanthropic sort of attitude about life in general—could be considered progress of a big kind.

"Heh, speaking of which," Jimmy went on, "some of the guys been asking about you… wanna know who you are, where I picked you up… why they haven't seen you 'round since last month."

Edgar feigned disinterest. "Oh? And what have you been telling them?"

"Told 'em you're my main squeeze," Jimmy grinned, mean-spirited glee pooling around his chair. "Told 'em you're all straight edge an' I been goin' light 'cause you won't sleep with me otherwise."

Edgar raised a finger, and then dropped it. "…Oh _have_ you?"

"An' I'm not even lying," the kid cackled, leaning back. "Way I figure it, you _wouldn't_."

"Except that you left out how I'm your teacher, your councilor, _and_ eight years your senior. Oh, and that we aren't actually dating. Yes, but other than that you're clean as a saint."

"Not tellin' 'em I'm dating a _teacher_. You wanna torch my reputation or what? As for the rest of it, 's none of their business even if they cared. Been exercising my literary skills too—you oughta hear some of the stories I been tellin'."

"I'm sure I can think up a sufficiently foul substitute for myself," Edgar replied, ignoring the tremor that went through his finger when he took a second to consider such a substitute. "You know, if word manages to get around to Rogers, I'll be fired faster than you can say 'code of conduct'."

"You don't seem particularly worried," Jimmy retorted, resting his elbows on the desktop and his head in his hands.

"Well. I don't think you're stupid enough to say anything like that to the kids here, and I'm not worried about your little clique mingling with them either. Other than that, there's the matter of nobody particularly liking you… a situation you do little to amend, by the way."

"So what you're sayin'," Jimmy replied, leaning closer, "is nobody'd know if you _did_ try to pull somethin' on me. You could… get away with it."

Edgar pulled back. "Well, yes I suppose. If I were inclined to take advantage of my students, which I'm not."

Jimmy leaned even closer, pressing against the top of the desk. "You remember when I said I was a bitch for authority?" he asked, a sultry tone creeping through his voice. "I wasn't lying."

"Er." Heart beating quickly now, Edgar had a moment—just a moment, mind you—where he could really imagine throwing his student down on the floor and taking advantage of his age and position in a way he'd never dreamed of doing before. And then he looked back at Jimmy.

"You were _too _lying," he murmured, sitting forward so that they were now only inches apart. "Are you testing me, Jimmy? Do you think I need testing?"

A half-smile ghosted across the boy's lips. "I guess not," he said. He sat back now, draping his arms across his legs. "You wanna know why I trust you? You wanna know why I like you?"

Edgar tilted his head.

"It's 'cause you're a good guy. I never ran across one of those before, I'll tell you truly. But mostly, it's 'cause you really do care about me, an' I can tell."

Something glittered in his eyes, something a lot deeper than people gave him credit for. Jimmy was no idiot, and neither was he shallow. Things ran deep in him, sliding into secret places where the meaning lost the words that went with them. The jumbled mess of shadows and dreams wove through his brain, waiting on a kind of precipice, waiting to be tugged one way or the other.

"Do you remember when you first saw me?" Edgar asked, finally, eyes fixed on empty space. "You were still trying to beat the living hell out of Joe Manuel, and you had two teachers trying to drag you away. You know what I thought, when I first got a good look?"

Jimmy quirked a brow.

"I thought nothing. Literally, I couldn't think. It's kind of like when you get high for the first time, and you see all the colors and the shapes like you were living blind up until then—really see them, how they connect and how they're really all part of the same thing. Well, no, maybe that was just me? The point is… the point is… I don't have a point. Some things just are what they are."

"So we're agreed, then," Jimmy said, peering out from under black-rimmed eyelids. "I trust you, you trust me, even though we got no business doin' it. You're a shit psychiatrist by the way."

Edgar grinned, suddenly, and spread his arms out wide. "But Jimmy," he replied, "I'm exactly what you need!"

The kid started to respond and then stopped, mouth open mid-syllable. "…You sneaky fucker," he managed, an amazed smile tugging his mouth. "An' all this time I thought it was me givin' _you_ the go around."

It was funny how everything was _different_ with Jimmy.

"You know what?" the student went on, shaking his head. "I graduate end of May. Let's see you slip out from under me _then_."

Edgar sighed and closed his eyes. "I think… I think I'll just have to let you have that one, this time."

Right now, he didn't feel like arguing.

* * *

FIN


	2. Happiness

2

Happy

* * *

It had been a week since Jimmy planned out somebody's murder.

It used to be such a hobby of his. Oh, he knew that he'd never go through with it (probably), but it had always been a sure-fire way to pull himself out of depression or embarrassment- out of those moments when some chick stood him up in public, or one of the jocks knocked him down the stairs because he'd always been skinny and no amount of dirty fighting experience can save you when two hundred fifty pounds of sheer muscle slams into you from behind. These are a few of his least favorite things.

And they made him so mad. They made him want to leave pipe bombs in the cafeteria and do horrible things with coat hangers. They used to make him want to cry, but he got over it because only pussies cry and he was tired of getting fucked in all the wrong ways.

Being angry feels good.

Being angry feels great.

He tried to cultivate a constant flow of hatred to replace his blood, pouring out the organic liquid and replacing it with something of his own design. Do what feels good. He tried to keep angry, keep cynical and sarcastic, always looking for something better and never expecting it. Righteous anger is what makes the world go 'round.

But it had been a week since he planned somebody's murder.

And he had a feeling he knew whose fault it was.

Jimmy looked down at his nails, pooling black varnish on the flesh-colored flats. Little droplets caught the light in liquid white highlights from the nearby lamp, and ran as he painted across the surface. He used to make comparisons, used to say _black like my soul_ or _thick as the seething rivers of Hell_—but lately he's gotten a little self-conscious about all that. He tried talking like that around Edgar once, and the man had slapped his shoulder and laughed like he made some sort of clever joke rather than wax poetic about the dark beauty of blood.

And the misunderstanding unsettled him enough to keep him from trying it again.

That had been back when they hardly knew each other, and his councilor still thought there was a normal human being buried deep underneath all the eyeliner and insults. If he had tried that now, Edgar would probably give him a horrified look and ask what sorts of harlequin poetry he'd been _reading_.

And nowadays, the question would actually make him uncomfortable because he was pretty sure the only poetry he'd ever read was Edgar Allen Poe, and suddenly that didn't seem like as much of an accomplishment as it used to.

Besides, lately he'd been inspired to make slightly different comparisons from time to time. Occasionally, sunsets were reminding him of things other than blood and fire; occasionally, rain reminded him of something besides tears. For the first time, shades of brown started to make him think of warmth and earth and those stupid mud castles he used to make when he was a dumb little kid and he'd been happy just hanging around the house while his dad read the paper on the porch.

(Everybody was happy at some point, Edgar told him.)

Edgar himself seemed to be all shades of brown and whites—he'd been figuring out words for the difference shades, beige and taupe and umber and a bunch of other faggot adjective that he wanted to learn how to use. Edgar had skin like sweet coffee and hazel eyes and ochre hair, and he needed new similes to describe it all because his catch of figurative language didn't cover this sort of thing.

He'd gotten used to red and black, violence and darkness—and purple for sarcasm and silver for tarnished things. He knew about the river Styx and the pits of the human soul; he could make comparisons to snakes and beetles and earthquakes, and long black nights.

But now was when he really needed metaphors—the key to understanding foreign concepts, Edgar told him—and now was exactly the moment when all his metaphors failed him.

When Edgar smiles at him, it's warm and it's got all these bright shades of genuine amusement painted underneath, and he doesn't have anything to compare it to. Maybe the sun.

When he catches Edgar napping in between classes, he doesn't know what to think. If he's like a snake, then he's a garden snake catching the last rays of summer.

And they've laughed, the two of them, and they talked about things besides The Man's Agenda and killing classmates. Things besides how to break the law and get away with it. Things besides how rotten the world is. Hours would fly by, whenever they sat down together, and by the end of it he'd forget to be sullen at all. It was sort of like getting high—that was the only real comparison he had.

He liked it.

So lately, he'd been thinking about things a little differently, just trying a new perspective on for size. Do whatever feels good, right? And being pissed off could feel good, but he hadn't so much realized that being happy could be just as nice until recently. Probably because he hadn't had much experience with it before.

He supposed that there was a reason why everybody wanted to be happy.

He looked back down at the nail polish, drying quickly on little slabs. Maybe, just for tonight, the black could remind him of midnight skies when the stars are out and the moon is half full, and The Who is paying on the stereo…

And he could try being happy, for a little while.

FIN


	3. Need

3

Need

"You Can't always get what you want..."

* * *

Edgar always bought into the American dream. When you're the son of a Cuban immigrant, even a relatively wealthy one, you get an appreciation for the possibilities in America whether you like it or not.

He always wanted a house in the suburbs, a white picket fence, family dinners every night. He knew it would be tight sometimes, between his teacher's salary and his future wife's part time job, but they would love each other and they'd be happy and that was worth more than any mortgage. She'd be blond, sensible dark blond, the kind of color you only have if you've never died your hair; she'd wear slacks and business skirts, and she'd know how to cook desserts because he knew how to cook dinners, and that would even things out.

They'd meet at a parade.

They'd meet at a coffee house.

They'd meet on the street, bumping into each other and the fireworks would shoot off and they'd just _know_.

Edgar wanted that.

He kept an eye on the better neighborhoods, driving through them on detours late in the afternoon, admiring cottages and sensible brick homes and imagining _what would it be like to live here? To raise a family here?_

Edgar wanted perfect mornings with mugs of tea on the kitchen table, waffles when there was time and bagels when there wasn't, he wanted crayon drawings on the fridge and early morning Easter services, he wanted…

He wanted what he'd lost at eleven when his mother came home from the hospital with a half a bouquet of get-well flowers and a paste-on smile.

Edgar wanted that.

But so far, nothing was going his way. None of the girls he met were his, every one meant for somebody else even if he didn't know who that somebody was. They weren't supposed to end up with him. There were no sparks, there was no sense of easy companionship, and even though he didn't really believe in love at first sight he thought you ought to at least feel _something._ Friendship, vague approval even.

He'd had girlfriends before—three if you wanted to get accurate—but none of them ever went anywhere. They both knew it was transitory, both knew that it would never be more than dinner and dates to art shows. No real love. Affection, certainly, but nothing strong enough to weather a lifetime.

And that was why there was still an empty place across from him at the table.

* * *

Edgar was sitting on a park bench, trying to keep an eye on fifty students while simultaneously making periodic call-ins on the walkie-talkie Vanessa had handed him. He was pretty sure she'd given him the one dud in the whole bag. And this as if it wasn't enough that Angelica had conned him into taking her place, as if he didn't end up doing half the administrative work for the English department anyways.

Static, static, static…

And where'd Vanessa disappear off to anyways? _She_ was supposed to be chaperoning this thing, not him—and goddamnit, she better not have wandered off with the tour guide because that was so _incredibly_ unprofessional.

"Hey there, _Mr. Vargas_."

Edgar looked over at the kid taking a seat next to him. Jimmy winked, stretched and let his arms fall behind him like one of those dumb jocks trying to put the moves on his girl at the beginning of a fifties horror movie. Edgar eyed the hand resting just above his shoulder.

"Good afternoon, Jimmy. Please keep your hands to yourself."

"Aw, so professional," the student complained, sliding a little closer. "After all we been through?"

"We are in _public_," Edgar hissed. "You know what kind of trouble you could get me into if Mrs. Hollenbeck sees us and tells Rogers."

"Rogers can suck my dick," Jimmy yawned. "You be principal. C'mon. It'll be great."

"Seriously, you need to stop. I don't want to get fired for something I haven't even done."

The younger man looked out towards the field where his classmates were playing an impromptu game of football next to the historical graveyard. Edgar followed his eyes.

"I hate to bust up your paranoid bubble, Edgar man, but nobody out there gives a shit what you do. Relax, dude. Anyways, Mrs. Hollenbeck's fucking the park ranger behind the station."

"That _bitch_," Edgar breathed. Then he glanced sideways at Jimmy's bemused face and dug the heels of his palms into his cheeks. Ugh, fantastic. "Sorry."

"Dude, I didn't know you even knew _how_ to cuss."

"Obviously, you're not really supposed to do it around students."

"You're also not s'posed to kiss 'em. Didn't exactly stop you before."

Edgar glanced back at the arm still resting inches behind his shoulders, considering that he could actually move it himself before somebody did manage to notice. Except, you know, he didn't really want to. It was nice out and he could feel the sun sinking into the black folds of his jacket, could hear wind driving through the trees behind him, could see every shade of yellow and green in the grass spreading out in front of him. And he didn't really feel like pushing Jimmy off the bench just now.

"That kiss was a onetime deal. It doesn't mean anything."

Jimmy gave him a suddenly serious look, brows furrowed. "Edgar, _mi __corazón_, what d'you want outta life anyways?"

Looking askance at his student, the older man asked, "And are you the councilor today?"

"Maybe. Why not? You're great at workin' out other people's shit, but I really don't think you got a clue what you want. Humor me, yeah?"

The sun was golden and the sky was blue, and Edgar was suddenly very uncomfortable. Rule number one of being a Vargas was not examining your own problems too closely.

"I want what most people want, I guess," Edgar shrugged. "A happily ever after, a family, somebody to love… you know, that stuff."

Jimmy grunted. "How _normal_."

"Well, what about you," Edgar shot back, "what do you want?"

A smile broke across his student's face. "Lotsa sex, lotsa rock, an' a helluva lotta kisses from you if I can't have any more drugs."

"Hmm." Edgar looked over at his class one more time, and slid into the crook of Jimmy's arm. It was warmer, after all. "I guess that's one way to look at life."

Jimmy curled his black-nailed fingers around his teacher's far shoulder.

"Y'could try it sometime."

And they sat in the sun, pretending to be a couple until someone blew the load-up whistle and broke the spell.

* * *

The thing about life is that you can't really tell it where to go. If you expect too much, you're bound to be disappointed.

That doesn't mean that life can't be good, though.

As the senior class loaded up on their charter bus, the kind that smells vaguely of carpet fibers and Lysol disinfectant, Edgar caught sight of a woman on the side of the road.

Her vest marked her to be a tour guide, and she had an admirably sensible bob of dark blond hair tucked behind her ears. Little faux diamond studs. She looked up from her clipboard for just a moment, just hardly a spark of a second, and caught Edgar's eye.

She was pretty, very clearly a woman. She probably had a cat, but she'd grown up with dogs and she didn't really mind them, probably wanted a daughter someday that she could buy princess dresses and Lawyer Barbies for. She probably liked romantic comedies but not Oprah, and she'd probably have the perfect cherry pie recipe tucked somewhere on her kitchen shelf.

She looked at him, and Edgar knew that this was what he had asked for.

All he had to do was talk to her. All he had to do was walk over, tell her that he'd lost his wallet in the park and he could really use some help if she could spare a minute, if it wasn't any trouble?

She looked at him, and she was what he had always wanted, ever since he was old enough to draw pictures of his future family for some crayon coated assignment in kindergarten.

He felt a tap on his shoulder.

Behind him, Jimmy was holding up a spray can and grinning.

"Tell 'em you caught me tryin' to vandalize a headstone, an' I can sit next to you on the way back."

Edgar took the can and after a moment of contemplation, said, "Alright."

And he never looked back.


	4. Loneliness

Loneliness

This one was written to be the romantic counterpart of ( http:/desdemonakakalose .deviantart. com/art/Never-Made-Sense-Anyway-186552697 ) because something happened in November that didn't get mentioned in "Interlude", but it was definitely _not_ supposed to be that sexual. Where is my mind these days?

* * *

"Love is for losers," Jimmy said.

Edgar nodded indulgently and handed him a cup of tea.

It was November and they were sitting in Edgar's classroom, watching the sun setting through the window after three hours of hanging out—man he was such an awesome influence—and basically doing nothing constructive in the slightest. Theoretically, at least, he could have been doing his homework.

He also could have been swimming the English Channel, you know, _theoretically._

"Don't you nod at me, _Mr. Vargas_. I'm straight serious. Only idiots fall in love."

Edgar sighed and poured a shot of tequila into his tea. It looked kind of foul, but then, Jimmy wasn't exactly a connoisseur of alcoholic beverages. If it got him drunk, that was good enough. He suspected that in that regard, they weren't actually so very different.

Edgar was such a friggin' alcoholic. He loved it.

"You won't say that when it happens to you," Edgar said, stirring the unusual concoction.

"Oh yeah? You ever been in love?"

Edgar sighed again and propped his chin on one fist. The late afternoon sunlight reflected in his glasses, yellow lenses over soft brown eyes.

"I thought I was, once," the older man murmured, "but I was wrong."

"Who?" Jimmy asked, settling back into his chair. By this point in conversation, they tended to have wound down into something almost unbearably intimate, and Jimmy didn't want to move too quickly—Edgar would tell you a lot of things, but he never really explained himself. Never told you the whole story. Never offered more than the surface of the ocean, leaving any depths below obscured by the glare of sunlight on water.

You think you're seeing the whole story, but it's only an illusion.

In that regard, also, the two of them were a lot alike.

Edgar glanced back at him for a split second, and then his gaze returned to the horizon. "A girl. I've forgotten her name now. I'm terrible with names."

"…That's kind of pathetic, dude."

Edgar shrugged. "It was ten years ago. A lot happens in ten years."

Jimmy counted off in his head. Your mother dies, your father dies, you graduate from college, you get a job… Did that count as a lot? Somehow, he didn't think it was so much the big landmarks that Edgar meant.

"What was she like?" Jimmy asked, because Edgar was like this too-holy-for-his-own-good sort of saint sometimes, and picturing him in love was sort of like picturing Jesus in a porno. It didn't quite _mesh._

(That'd change in the next few months, but he didn't know it then.)

"She was attractive, I suppose," Edgar answered, sipping idly on his tequila and tea. "I met her at the place I used to work, back in high school. Her mother was a… customer."

Jimmy raised a brow. "Edgar, man, y' didn't work at a brothel or anything, did you?"

Normally that would have snapped his councilor into a fit of embarrassed shouting, possibly derailed the conversation and ruined the moment forever—he regretted the question as soon as it came out of his mouth—but today Edgar only shook his head.

"Not likely."

The younger man reached tentatively for the bottle of tequila, expecting something to prevent him from grabbing it. He was surprised to find that Edgar hardly even glanced his way.

"So," he said, pouring a shot into his own tea—because, well, he had it now and he ought to use it. "You dated whatshername?"

"No," the older man replied. "I saw her sitting in the waiting room with a volume of E.E Cummings' poetry. I tried to ask her out, but I couldn't. We used to go places together, hang out in the parking lot after I got off work. She told me she loved me, once."

"That's sad, man."

Edgar nodded vaguely. "I always wanted to ask her out. I really did think I was in love, you know. But every time I tried to, I would think about spending the rest of my life with her and I'd get scared. I just wanted her to want me so badly, I wanted _somebody_ to want me. I wanted her to love me.

"I loved being loved."

Jimmy looked down at his cup, not feeling so enthusiastic about cheap rule-breaking anymore.

"Everybody wants to be loved," the kid almost said, _almost_ managed to choke out. Everybody wants to think they have some value, that somebody cares about them, that someone would miss them if they were gone.

But he didn't say it.

"The worst thing," Edgar said, at last, "is knowing what it's like to be loved… and then being alone."

The sun sunk behind the jagged line of the city.

Three days later, it was Friday and Jimmy was driving himself crazy.

He was eating breakfast, and it was like Edgar was across from him again, saying "I wanted _somebody_ to love me."

He was zoning out in math class, and all he could think about was Edgar sitting alone in church, whatever church he went to, praying to himself while all the other families crowded in around him with kids and grandparents and boyfriends. All alone.

And he couldn't stop replaying the scene in his head, wishing that he'd said something. Fuck, he should have said something.

"I know what you mean"

"I'm sorry"

"I'm alone too"

But he was shit with feelings and making people understand and nothing sounded right, nothing sounded right because he didn't know what to say except that he needed to say it. If only he could have explained.

He got it. He really got it.

He spent the last four years of his life thinking the same things, bashing his head against the same walls, trying to break through to some kind of answer, something to make it all make sense. He understood. The worst part was being alone.

He thought he was alone.

Maybe he wasn't.

And he should have said something, he should have said, "Edgar, man, I know exactly what you mean and I feel that way all the time," and then it would have been okay, and maybe he would have slapped his heart down on the cutting board but at least he wouldn't have been alone—even for five minutes, someone would have understood him.

But it's so hard to bust down your own walls.

And shit, what could he have said, really? It all sounded cliché, even to him, and he couldn't imagine pushing the words out of his own mouth, hearing them out loud like they were real and they had power. He'd sound like an idiot. 'Course, Edgar wouldn't laugh at him—they'd known each other for a couple months at most, then, but he would have trusted the man with his life, if it came down to it. But even so, he couldn't bring himself to do it.

And it was driving him crazy.

Every time Carmela had told him he was worthless, he started to believe it more and more. Nobody loves you, kid. And he'd fought back because he saw what was happening and he wasn't going to break, but sometimes he wonders, when he's the last guy standing outside the bar or he wakes up alone in the morning, sometimes he wonders why nobody gives a shit about him. If somebody ever will.

And now he thought he understood Edgar for the first time, like a cloud had passed over the sun and he could see down into the dark caverns of the ocean for just a second.

It was driving him crazy.

It was Friday afternoon, and Jimmy had Edgar's keys held hostage.

"Just this once, man," the kid was saying, standing on the exact other side of the classroom. "You won't regret it!"

"For the love of God, Jimmy, I'm _not_ going to _sleep_ with you!"

His student tossed the keys from one hand to the other. "Hey, I just said we should go _out_. You're the one who went an' made it all sexual. Shame on you."

Edgar pinched the bridge of his nose. "What am I supposed to think? I know you pretty well by now, you know."

"Well, maybe you don't. Now, are we goin' out or what?"

The teacher eyed the stolen keys. "You're really not going to give those back, are you?"

The younger man grinned. "Nah, I really don't think so."

And that was how Jimmy convinced his councilor to pull into the school dorms four hours later, swearing out clouds of warm breath into the late fall air. Jimmy stood at his window for a moment after the horn blasted down the street, watching steam disappear into the evening as Edgar let loose muted curses.

Edgar wouldn't have agreed to this if he hadn't really wanted to.

So Jimmy wasted a few moments just watching, grinning down through the blinds. He liked the way his councilor's cream and coffee colored skin turned pink from cold and annoyance. He was pretty sure he'd never seen that happen before.

And then he was strolling down the stairs, the myriad of chains around his waist clinking dully.

"Aw, darlin', you're on time."

Edgar swore at him and opened the passenger door.

The car was a blue Volvo, and Jimmy sort of thought it was fittingly non-descript. He liked Edgar's car. It was so… boring. Or at least it looked like that. Inside, you could find half a dozen essays, psychology text books, and leases of bail at a time.

Fun fact. Edgar was the guy you called when you were stuck in jail at two in the morning and you couldn't bring yourself to call your parents. It was something that everyone in the academy knew.

Jimmy was still waiting for his turn.

"So, where we goin'?" the kid asked, settling into the worn leather.

"Don't look at me, this was _your_ idea."

"Huh. Well, we could always abandon this plan an' head up to my room…"

Edgar gave him the world's least impressed look. "If you try to tell me _that_ wasn't a sexual solicitation, I'll throw you out of the car here and now."

"Okay, okay, jeeze. Uh, y'know what? Let's… let's go out to dinner."

The older man's brows flew up. "What, no clubs? No bars? No brothels?"

"Whadda I look like, a prostitute? I _happen_ to enjoy other activities than banging my teachers. Eatin' is one of 'em."

The engine fired up. Edgar gave him a fleeting bemused look and then reached for the radio.

"I hope you like _Journey_."

Twenty minutes later, the Volvo was parked outside of an Italian restaurant with an embarrassingly kitschy Mom and Pop name. There was a dry cement fountain in the grass outside of it, and Jimmy was trying to decide whether he was appalled or amused.

There were Italian flags hanging off the walls.

"Don't you dare laugh," Edgar warned him, stepping out of the car. "My father was good friends with the family who owns this place, and if you embarrass me I may have to kill you."

"You're a hard man t' please," Jimmy muttered, slinking out his door. "Not worried you'll look like a faggot in fronta daddy's friends, draggin' me in there with you?"

Edgar actually laughed. "Oh, these people know me," he said, with the astounding confidence of a man who has never looked in the mirror. "It's fine."

Almost the second they stepped through the front door, a huge man was flying towards Edgar and wrapping him in the most iron-locked bear hug Jimmy had ever seen. Ever. His spine winced in sympathy.

"Edgar Vargas!" the massive man cried, grinning like a crazy person. "Hell, it's great to see you! How've you been?"

Edgar wheezed a little bit before the stranger took the hint and let go. Apologetic grin. Jimmy hung back, a little uncomfortable and a little entertained.

"Um," Edgar coughed, rubbing his neck, "I'm great. Jimmy, this is Gian Vargas, he was my dad's friend in high school. Gian, this is Jimmy Eurige, my—my friend."

Gian spared a second to eye Jimmy's chains and eyeliner. "Hey, you must be one of those goth type people," the huge man announced, looking pleased with himself. "Never met one of those before! It's a pleasure to meet one of Edgar's friends, real great. Let me get you a table!"

Jimmy watched him dash off, distinctly confused. He had definitely seen anybody that big move that fast before, and he was… not quite sure what just happened. Not at all.

"You guys have the same last name," he observed, running a hand through his spiked hair.

Edgar smiled and palmed a peppermint off the host's podium. "That was how they met, him and my father. They always ended up sitting next to each other. Back then, Gian didn't speak English very well—as it turns out, Spanish is just enough like Italian that they were able to carry on decent conversations. Some kind of pidgin English-Spanish-Italian."

The smile faltered for a second.

"Gian gave a speech at my father's funeral."

And then the mountain of a man was practically dragging them off to the curtained off alcove of the room, where a table sat lit by a dim little candle. Jimmy raised a brow at Edgar, wondering how the heck this didn't qualify as a textbook romantic dinner. The older man pretended he didn't see the question.

Gian slapped Edgar on the shoulder and told them that he'd send a waiter over with some wine, grinned and pulled the curtains closed behind him.

The world narrowed down to two chairs and a table top.

In the new space, everything was shades of yellow and black and the sounds from beyond the cloth wall were culled down to a cocoon of indistinct voices. Across the table, the older man settled into his chair with a soft sigh.

"Uh… wine?" Jimmy inquired, hopefully.

"Yes," Edgar sighed, "you get some. It's a European thing. Drinking age in Italy is sixteen. He wouldn't do it for just any customer, but Gian knows me, obviously, so nobody's going to ask how old you are."

"Aw, Edgar, that's the sweetest thing a man's ever said to me!"

The teacher shook his head. Music was playing somewhere in the back ground, and he cocked his head for a moment, listening, and then smiled.

"A bottle of red," Edgar half sang, "a bottle of white… whatever kind of mood you're in tonight…"

Jimmy rolled his eyes.

In the timely way of restaurants where they know you, soon enough the table was stocked up in wine and bread and promises to _bring dinner right out, sir_. And Edgar was smiling, and that made Jimmy smile, weirdly enough, and he realized that in that moment that he was happy—happy, for no reason except he just _was._

Edgar sipped his wine, waving newly sooty fingers over the little yellow candle.

"So, why did you want to do this, anyways?"

Jimmy knocked back his own glass, just to piss Edgar off. Apparently, you were supposed to _savor_ it, or whatever.

"Maybe I was hopin' you put out on the first date?"

The older man's hands twitched for something to throw, but it looked like public places quelled that particular instinct. Jimmy let an insufferable grin slide across his face.

"It wouldn't kill you to give me a straight answer, you know," his councilor sighed, at last, releasing his hold on the sterling silver spoon.

Oh, but it would. The difference between the two of them was that Jimmy knew what he wanted, and he didn't care much what he looked like trying to get it. He had a feeling Edgar _liked_ him.

Edgar did not know about this.

And you can't just tell somebody _woops, hate to break it to you but you totally dig me_, because that almost never goes over well and this was not something he wanted to screw up. For once. He suspected that if he tried to push this thing, whatever it was that they had, it would break into pieces in his hands.

He probably wouldn't have been able to explain it if he tried, anyways. Words weren't his strong point.

By the end of dinner, the two of them were decidedly tipsy and Jimmy's tongue was feeling a little looser. He looked over at Edgar, his councilor—teacher—fantasy—_friend_, and gave him a crooked smile.

What the hell.

"You remember…" he started, reaching for the wine bottle, "You remember what you said couple days ago, 'bout bein' alone?"

Edgar frowned at him. "Yes, I… ah… 'm sorry about that. It wasn't very professional of me."

Jimmy made a clumsy dismissing motion. "Nah. The funny thing's… like, I know what you mean. 'Bout bein' alone an' stuff. 'M alone too. Why'da think they sent me out t' the goddamn Academy? It's not 'cause they want me to have a… education or nothin'."

The candle flickered. Edgar nodded, slowly, and set down his glass.

"Wanted to go out tonight," Jimmy went on, "'cause you don't got anybody an' I don't got anybody, an'… well, I always thought I was the only one."

After a moment of contemplation, Edgar smiled vaguely and tapped the green glass between them. "We're sharing a drink called loneliness," he quoted, "but it's better than drinking alone."

"Somethin' like that."

The older man looked down into his drink, brows furrowed. "For what it's worth," he sighed, "I… you know, I'm glad you're assigned to me."

The next day, he wouldn't remember exactly how they left the restaurant—he did remember, though, sitting in the car as they raced through yellow lights, making fun of Edgar driving _under the influence_, offering to settle for a go in the back seat if Edgar had changed his mind…

He remembered the feeling of driving in the darkness with the windows down, freezing and laughing like an idiot. Unlike his friends, Edgar wouldn't leave him in a gutter somewhere or wander off with a low class stripper. It was just the two of them, being stupid, forgetting for an hour the lines between teachers and students and councilors and patients, and the lines between twenty-seven and eighteen.

They just _were_.

And suddenly it wasn't about getting laid or proving Carmela wrong, if it had ever really been about that at all. Maybe at first, it had been about distracting the hot psychologist, maybe it had been about showing his stepmother—wherever the hell she was—that she didn't control him, that he could _deal_ with people without remembering her spider thin hands, and goddamnit, he _wasn't_ _worthless_—

Maybe it was like that in the beginning.

But that was suddenly a long time ago.

Tonight, he was in a different world than that: orange streetlights and autumn parking lots, and a tipsy older man who thought that Jimmy was a good person, deep down, who worried about him when he did stupid-ass shit.

The Volvo parked outside of his dorm, and Edgar leaned back against his seat, smiling. Jimmy didn't have a roommate, but his neighbors would be demanding to know who had dropped him off tomorrow, and suddenly he really wished he wouldn't have to lie about it. This shouldn't be something you have to lie about.

Something had shifted. Maybe that was the night it started, maybe that was just the first time it rose up close to the surface.

He turned to Edgar.

What he wanted to say was something he didn't have words for. It was a _something_ where there had only been a _lack_ before. It was a future glimpsed in full screen. His chest and his head ached with something that wasn't physical in the slightest, and he never wanted to leave. There was a phrase, out there somewhere in the English language, to describe what he was feeling. He knew there had to be.

He was pretty sure it wasn't "can I suck your dick."

But, for lack of alternatives, he said it anyways.


	5. Fantasy

Fantasy

DA tag: "A little fantasy never hurt anybody, right? Yes, that's rich coming from the psychology major."

* * *

It's funny how once you know somebody, suddenly you start seeing them everywhere. Let's say, just for the heck of it, your former school-sanctioned patient who enrolled into the second semester of your first period psychology class in the middle of January. Just for kicks.

One weekend about mid-march, Edgar Vargas ran into his most infuriating student in the food court of the local mall. It was actually a funny story, because he'd just spent the Friday afternoon before lecturing the kid about the ethics concerned with hitting on your teachers (specifically, the ethics _against_ that practice) and why it was really a Bad Idea to turn in assignments that included a multitude of creative euphemisms for male anatomy. Of course Jimmy didn't pay a cent of attention, as per usual, and spent the next hour hanging around and dropping yet more blatant hints. And that had been their Friday, which was sadly quite usual also.

Things had been getting progessively more bizarre and still less surprising ever since Jimmy picked up his first period class.

Saturday, however, found Edgar hanging around the food court in the hopes that he could scrounge up a meal from the various samples—the Asian restaurants were particularly generous, for some reason—and put off spending ten dollars that he really didn't have at the grocery store. The Academy, being a private school, had promised him not a whole lot more than minimum wage back when he was searching desperately for the right kind of job and minimum wage was beginning to sound like a pretty good offer. At the moment, he was somewhere between paying off that one busted tire from a couple weeks ago and the looming mass of his student loans, all of which led him here to the food court for some semblance of a free meal.

And then Jimmy showed up.

Showed up with a gang of friends, at that. Edgar'd had the dubious fortune of meeting that particular crew once before, and he was still trying to figure out what exactly he'd been introduced to—

(It made him wish he'd had more friends in high school, or at least paid better attention to conversations in the hallways. Goths and punks and these sorts of things had certainly existed in the late eighties if he'd only thought to study them. He'd been told that you could research such subculture phenomena on the internet these days, but as he had neither a computer of his own nor world-wide-web access at work, the point was moot.)

But in any case, one minute the older man had been palming his fourth mini-eggroll from the Wonton Express, and the next he was ducking down under an empty table to keep from being seen. Jimmy, the sneaky little bastard, stood no more than five feet away, surrounded by a mass of black cloth and glittering studs and a generous helping of eyeliner.

Hiding seemed like the best course of action, all in all.

Edgar recognized one of them, the one with the cigarette, and that was bad because Chico (it was Chico, wasn't it?) would probably recognize him back and he might say something, and then Jimmy would know he was here and then he'd have to explain that he and Jimmy were not dating—

REPEAT: Not dating!

—despite how it likely (definitely) had looked last time. But just as long as Jimmy was looking the other way and Chico was safely over _there_, he could probably sneak out through the back entrance and avoid that whole awkward scenario.

He took a step backwards and smacked into a very solid torso.

"Watch your fucking step," the human blockade groused, in the undeniable voice of young guys the world round trying to pick a fight.

"Er." Edgar turned and found himself face-to-neck with someone actually a head taller than himself—wondering, before he could stop himself, whether he was a high-schooler too, and whether Coach Winter had recruited him yet.

The tall kid glared at him, squaring his shoulders in a way that was much more ominous from someone looming at a good 6'6. Visions of lacerations and broken bones flitted through the older man's head, and he wished yet again that he knew _anything_ about the moral philosophy of this particular group.

"Uh," Edgar managed. _Sorry_, he ought to say _sorry_, except he was a bit distracted what with wondering if this kid really _was _a high schooler, and how in God's name did someone that young get that tall, he couldn't be much older than eighteen and Edgar was what twenty-seven? and he was getting _loomed_ over, by God, and he really needed to tell Coach Winter about this guy-

And in the back of his head his common sense was running a helpless mantra of _Please be pacifistic, please be pacifistic. _

"Huh. This jackass won't apologize," the tall kid called, pointing one huge finger towards Edgar's unprotected forehead. "Let's beat his ass. Hey, Jimmy!"

Edgar almost died, turning just in time to catch Jimmy flipping his assailant the bird.

"I'm the _Darkness_, you dipshit," he called, sashaying over from the rest of the crew. "Get it fuckin' right if y—"

Jimmy squinted at Edgar, who had his face hidden behind one mortified hand. He'd take that beating now, please and thank you.

"Aw man, _Edgar?"_

Chico peered over Jimmy's shoulder, cigarette leaving trails of smoke around the delinquent's ear. "Hey," he said, taking a drag, "ain't that the guy you're fucking?"

Edgar's jaw dropped. "W_hat?" _

_Oh god, what did I get myself into?_

Jimmy let out a long suffering sigh and elbowed his friend hard in the gut. "I told you man, Edgar's private about that shit. Could y'please keep your fuckin' mouth shut for five minutes?" Then he looked up at the tall one and made a shooing motion. "Let it go Vlad. He don't mean any harm."

There was a split second of eye contact between the teacher and student, blink and you could miss it, and Jimmy was saying _please don't fuck this up for me, I swear I'll explain later_ and Edgar was saying _I can't believe you're dragging me into this, you've got some nerve—_

And then it was over.

Vlad gave them all a dubious look but backed off, scowling. Across the row of tables, a few of the other guys were shooting Edgar curious or suspicious looks, and Edgar avoided eye contact because these guys had no problem with impromptu staring contests and if he got into one of those he was pretty sure these guys could read his mind like a book and what the hell _had_ Jimmy been telling them anyways—

"He ain't goth," Chico remarked, recovering from the earlier blow well enough to give Edgar his version of the appraising stare. "Punk neither. In fact, he looks like… dude, he looks like a prep. Jimmy, you're fuckin' a _prep_?"

"Okay, stop that," Edgar cut in, feeling his backbone solidify with sheer indignation. "Don't you start throwing high school labels in my face, you cancerous wastoid. I'm a grown man, I _work_ for a living."

"Touchy," Chico shot back. "Man Jimmy, how'd you get yourself into an ass that tight?"

Jimmy slapped a hand over his teacher's mouth just in time to prevent some very choice words from escaping. That was just as well for him, since they would have been something to the point of "I'm his councilor not his boyfriend!", or better yet: "I don't know what he's been telling you, but I wouldn't fuck him in a million years!"

"Hey, y'know," Jimmy replied instead, "my dick speaks for itself."

Edgar shot him the absolute worst look he could manage, burning an imaginary hole into the boy's head with the absolute force of his fury. _Say that again and I'll unman you myself._

His student apparently felt some of that telepathic violence, because he rolled his eyes and amended: "Fine, fine. ...We met at a club an' I asked him to go home with me. He was only there to get a drink—"

Edgar bit down on the smoky fingers over his mouth, about ready to get his damn two-cent in. The younger man yanked his hand back with a hiss.

"I told him to go fuck himself," Edgar announced through gritted teeth. Maybe he couldn't announce to the world at large that Jimmy was a lying pervert, but he could sure as hell take some control of the scenario.

Jimmy turned to him with sort of an "is that how you wanna play it?" expression. "But o' course," he replied, "I didn't give up that easy. I told you I was so amazing in the sack—"

"—and I said yeah, maybe if you could get it _up_—"

Somewhere out of the corner of his eye, Edgar noticed Chico settling in as if he was taking a front row seat at a boxing ring.

"—an' I offered you a blowjob, 'cause I really dig that kinda fuck-you attitude an' I thought you'd prob'ly _scream—_"

"—and I said if I wanted to expose myself to that kind of toxicity I'd just break a glow stick over my eyes—"

"—An' I said I love 'em when they don't give a motherfuckin' shit—"

"—and I said, yeah? I love them when they know how to keep their goddamn hands out of my pockets—"

"—Your personal bubble takes up, like, a city block. So I said, okay, just let me try an' get you off, you won't regret nothin'—"

"—I told you I'd regret waking up with herpes, you bet—"

"An' I promised the worst thing you'd wake up with was a sore ass—"

"Oh yes, that was classy—"

"Well y'gave me your number, didn't you?"

"What? Nnn, only because you wouldn't shut up."

"But I still got your number."

"You might have just as easily gotten a broken nose if you hadn't ducked that punch—"

"But we both know why I got your number, don't we?"

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah."

"Well why then, if not because you're an obnoxious prick?"

"Because I kissed you, after you took a swing at me."

Edgar opened his mouth to reply and found that suddenly he was all out of words. He looked at Jimmy and then he was looking past him, into a history that could have been, a night that might have been. He could see it all in his head, as clearly as if it had really happened, the way that they had woven it together.

Strobe lights, a dim lit bar, a man who stumbled into the nearest licensed establishment for a drink after a long day at work. A younger man comes swaggering up, handsome in a black-nail-polish sort of way but unbelievably arrogant, sits down beside him and strikes up an argument—moving closer all the while, sliding spidery hands up tense thighs—

A heavy heartbeat masked by harsh words, irritation undermined by amusement; he finds himself caught in this paradox of emotions, enjoying every second of it and pretending not to, hoping that it'll go on—

A swing that he hopes will miss, to end it all before it gets too out of hand, to express disapproval that only covers half of what he's feeling, and he thinks it's over. He thinks he's saved himself from regretting anything the next morning, because he has this ability to regret even the simplest mistakes and the longer they talk the more he can beat himself up when he wakes tomorrow, and it's good that he ended it now—

Except the arrogant kid rights himself and grins, all teeth and sparkling black eyes, and leans in—just like so, slow enough that he could be stopped if there was any willpower left to do it—and presses lips against lips, so soft that the older man wonders if he's dreaming, so earnestly that it blows him away.

That was how it could have been.

Back in the real world, Edgar looked away from his student and made a vague gesture, heart hurting somewhere deep inside his chest.

"It was very convincing," he admitted, at last, sliding his trembling hands into his pockets.

Chico coughed, shattering the spell that had wound between them.

"So what you're sayin'," the third wheel mused, slowly, looking back and forth, "is you went an' made a respectable dude out of the _Darkness_?"

Edgar raised a brow at his partner in crime. "_Respectable_ is a word I've never associated with Jimmy, and that's the truth."

Chico cackled, leaning back on the rickety foodcourt chair. "You're _dating_! He's been _calling_ you! Man, you damn well went and _domesticated_ him. You got him whipped!"

"Hey, Chico, _shut the fuck up._" After a second, Jimmy glanced back towards his teacher with a tiny little grin. A flash of silent laughter passed between them, because Jimmy was too pleased with the way things were going to be pissed off and they both knew it.

Edgar leaned over while Chico was distracted, mouth hovering over a pierced ear.

"Okay, I played along," he whispered, "now are you going to buy me lunch or what?"

The younger man snorted. "Like I got any money to spend on you." Then he stood back and amended: "but I'll buy you some fries or somethin' if you stick around for a while."

A couple of the guys were still looking over at them, trying to figure out what they thought of the guy with the button-down standing that close to a member of their crew. Goths, punks, whatever—Edgar really just wanted to know what exactly their philosophy on inter-clique relationships was, because he did not feel like getting assaulted in a dark alley because Jimmy wanted to live in a fantasy world.

"Frankly, Jimmy? Even if your friends didn't make me incredibly nervous, I still wouldn't sit here and let you further tarnish my reputation."

"Aw, c'mon man, you know you love it. You get laid more in my head than you've ever been in real life. Now tell me that isn't somewhere you wanna be?"

"Most assuredly not. Now, I need to go before one of your so-called friends decides he wants to get acquainted with my insides."

"_I_ wanna get acquainted with your insides."

Edgar stomped on his foot. "You'd have sex more if you weren't such a jackass, did you know that?"

"Yeah, but it's alright," the younger man grinned. "You're the only bitch for me. One o' these days, you're gonna make my freaky little dreams come true."

Edgar started to respond, and then thought better of it. Ah, the arrogance. "You want them to come true?" he echoed, sliding closer, resting a hand on his student's hip. "That so?"

With hardly a blink, Edgar reeled back and socked Jimmy in the gut.

"Huuuh," the younger man groaned, eyes going wide. Edgar smiled at that.

After a moment, the older man grabbed his companion by the chin and pressed a kiss onto the panting lips, light as a passing breeze.

"Keep dreaming, kid," he whispered. "See you Monday."

END


	6. Love

"Love"

I just realized I never posted my christmas chapter... oh well. Maybe next year.

FUN FACT: in my cannon, Edgar was captured the day before his birthday, and actually died the morning of.

* * *

One afternoon in April, Jimmy stumbled down the stairs of the Academy with the world's dumbest smile on his face and a hand firmly pressed against his lips, as if they might melt away at any moment.

Ever since he'd been transferred into Edgar's—excuse him, _Mr. Vargas's_—first period class, his life had been getting better and better. All the pleading and paperwork had totally been worth it; man, it was such a good thing they'd had that argument in the first place. And this, oh, this was the summit of everything he'd been working for.

To begin with, Jimmy was not by nature what you'd call an 'overachiever', or any kind of achiever at all. He lived by the principle of Sliding By, and sometimes outright Failure, and that had always been good enough for him because who was he trying to impress anyway? It wasn't like he'd ever need the grades. But for _Mr_. _Vargas_? For Mr. Vargas, he'd study his ass off and fuck the curve to hell and back, and he wouldn't tell a soul about it.

You had to forgive him if he slipped up occasionally and signed "Ben Dover" or "Haywood Jablowme" instead of his own name sometimes, because he was sort of wondering if he might get a positive answer one of these days and besides, Edgar was so much fun to rattle.

He had been trying, though. He read the text book and shit. He paid attention in class (okay, not so hard when everything was coming out of Edgar's mouth), and he even did the frickin' homework. Come to think of it, he was pretty sure he hadn't done so well in a class since elementary school. Once he even blew off a concert so he could study for a test, which was _crazy_ and the guys all assumed that he'd been screwing his imaginary boyfriend (who, yeah, happened to be named Edgar and maybe the guys still thought his teacher was also his boyfriend but whatever, not his fault), because their Jimmy would never ever ditch a concert for anything less.

They really didn't need to know the truth.

And it was all so fucking worth it because _Mr. Vargas_ was just so impressed, and now when he came by to hang out after school Edgar let him check out the test scores before anybody else even saw them and he'd just look so _pleased_ it made Jimmy want to drag him under a desk and have legit consensual sex with him and everything. It's weird how sometimes making other people happy can actually make _you_ happy. He never would have suspected.

Sometime mid-February, after Edgar traded a quick kiss for Jimmy's promise not to do any of the hardcore drugs going around (which actually, now that he thinks about it, was pretty fortunate since Fish overdosed on a bad batch during like the first round, and wow was that ugly), the younger man started making little efforts. The kiss sparked something he never noticed before, new and fascinating, and every little interaction held a new way to explore it. He felt like a musician testing out a new instrument, trying to make harmonies.

Little efforts. Trying to make Edgar turn red. Trying to make Edgar smile. Trying to make Edgar look nervously towards the door, because he'd caught himself thinking something illegal and his conscience kicked him in the ass. Trying to make Edgar just as unnervingly confused as he was. The kid had seen a couple chick-flicks, romantic comedies, whatever, during his career as a channel-surfing teenager, and he had a vague idea of what normal people did when they were digging somebody.

Flowers, right? He specifically remembered flowers, and candy and once a car, but he was pretty sure the car had been from a millionaire and flowers would make him look like a total fag, and candy was for Valentine 's Day, right?

(And he didn't want to look like one of those sissy guys who falls in _love_ because love is for losers and he'd told Edgar that a hundred times.)

There had to be something else. There had to be a way to sort of nudge his teacher in the right direction, a way to make him see that Jimmy wasn't just another dumbass teenager who thought with his dick all the time. Seriously, he hadn't even known that was true until he got to know the man. He was sort of impressed with himself - who knew he had it in him?

'Cause, y'know, the weird thing was that they were friends before anything else.

It struck him one morning as he was slinging is backpack into his seat, trying to convince himself that he was actually awake and not sleepwalking his way into a much less comfortable bed. He glanced up at the front of the room and realized that Edgar had about the same look, probably been up all night grading essays again, and he was looking mournfully down at his mug of tea—

Now, nobody else would be aware of this, but Jimmy happened to know for a fact that the only thing missing from that cup was a healthy dash of straight alcohol. Edgar had a rule (more of a guideline really) about drinking before lunchtime, and on top of that he'd nearly gotten caught with a quart of vodka just a week before, so he was going way lighter than usual. Edgar's conscience was more twisted than he gave it credit for.

And Jimmy thought to himself, _man, that sucks. I'm glad all I ever drink in the morning is coffee_.

And bam, the first Good Idea was born.

The next morning, Jimmy took the Car That He Had To Drive (not His Car, because His Car was back home with the stepmother) out to get coffee like usual, only this time he stood in front of the counter for an extra minute, trying to decide what Edgar would like. It had to be sweet, no question, but it had to be the faggiest thing on the menu too because Edgar was a goddamn fairy and he liked all that fancy designer shit.

He settled on a frapichino with some kind of spice he couldn't pronounce. Mostly, he just sort of pointed to something Italian sounding on the blackboard and said "gimme that with a shit-ton of caffeine in it".

And he carted it off to school with him.

Five minutes before the bell, he kicked open the door to _Mr. Vargas's_ classroom, mostly because his hands were full, and sauntered over to the desk where his councilor-turned-teacher had his head buried in a stack of essays (which, as it turned out, were actually honors English essays he'd been conned into grading) and made a "hey you" sort of _hmmmph_ noise.

Edgar looked up.

"Grabbed y' a coffee," he said, shaking the still-hot Styrofoam. He yawned, a little. "Didn't know what you wanted so I picked the gayest thing on the list. Looks like you could use it."

And Edgar stared at him, like Jimmy'd descended from heaven with the Sword of God to smite all his foes and a choir of angels singing at his back.

"You… brought me coffee?" the older man managed, looking from the cup to Jimmy's grinning face and back down again.

"Hey, what can I say? I'm benevolent an' magnanimous like that." Then Jimmy looked back at the rest of the classroom, three kids drooling onto their text books and a couple girls chatting listlessly in the back.

Assured that nobody was paying any attention, he leaned in closer.

"Now don't you give none of that to nobody else," he ordered, dipping down so that his breath brushed the older man's ear. "That one's special for you."

And then he'd stood back and grinned and headed for his seat like nothing at all had happened. What, Jimmy? Thoughtful? You must've dreamed it.

The moment of shocked silence made everything worth it.

He'd liked the expression on Edgar's face—that speechless, shifty look—so much that he'd gone back and done it all again the next day, and the next day, and the next. And Clarissa asked him once who the other one was for, was it for his imaginary _girlfriend_? like she thought she was so clever, but Jimmy just gave her his sharpest smile and told her to _fuck herself with a broom handle _in Spanish and left.

He had somewhere to be and goddamn if he was going to let another teenage bitch stand between him and that second floor classroom.

* * *

The even better Good Idea had arrived in the tail end of March, scribbled on a pad of notebook paper and shoved hastily into his binder.

This one started with him lounging in Edgar's office, messing around with the older man's computer while he was out in the hallway talking to Damon about some meeting Thursday (and no matter how normal that was, it still rankled with Jimmy because he fucking hated that snob-ass Damon and his suspicious little eyes). Jimmy had been trying to ignore the obnoxiously smooth voice conversing with Edgar by trolling through gay porn websites—he'd just figured out how to get the internet working and he was taking full advantage of that—and saving his favorite links into the computer's bookmark list. Hopefully, his teacher would spot the site when he came back in and throw a hissy fit.

He was just getting into the soft-core B&D, wondering what kind of reaction he'd get from that, when a little datebook alarm box popped up in the corner of his screen. He glanced down at it, intending to minimize it for Edgar and go on with his exploration, but never got quite that far.

"1st of April: EDGAR VARGAS'S BIRTHDAY"

Oh _really_.

He clicked the link that said "list" and found himself on a calendar of all the Academy teacher's birthdays—some kind of morale booster, he supposed, though he doubted that it worked too well. People don't celebrate a stranger's birthday, and the teachers around here didn't generally associate with each other beyond what was absolutely necessary.

Hey, wait a second.

"You got no family," he muttered to himself, propping his cheek on one fist, "so who're you gonna spend the day with?"

His own family was way down in the sunnier part of California, a day or three's drive away from the Academy, so he knew a thing or two about lonely birthdays—which wasn't even addressing the last four years of the Stepmother and her way of _perfectly fucking up anything decent in his life_—and while he was okay with it now (you know, no big deal who cares right?) he was not cool with the idea of Edgar alone in his apartment, grading worksheets on his birthday without even a call. It made him… it made him sad, actually.

And there weren't a lot of things that made Jimmy sad.

But they'd been friends for a while now, and he knew that Edgar's mother had lost her fight with cancer when he was nineteen, and his dad had died in a car accident on the way to her grave a couple years later, and that he really didn't have any good friends because something awful always happened to them if they didn't move away first.

(That last bit might make him worry for himself, except he was pretty sure nothing could beat the Stepmother and if he could handle Carmela, he could handle anything.)

So Edgar was going to spend his birthday alone, and god there was nothing sadder than a nice guy drinking a toast by himself, going out and buying a slice of cake from the restaurant down the street, pretending it was nothing, just another day, just another year going by with hardly a mark on the occasion.

No. Not for Jimmy's friend.

He had two days to get things straight, swing by the supermarket and the store and find the key to Edgar's apartment. Which he totally knew how to find because he followed the older man home one time and what, there was nothing creepy about that, is it so wrong to want to know where your friend lives?

So on April 1st, Jimmy stopped by the second floor classroom to tell Edgar that he'd be leaving early, couldn't hang out today, had to meet a friend this afternoon. He bit down on the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing, and this weird electric feeling in his gut would not quit.

Edgar gave him this "oh" sort of look, and it was blank enough that it quieted the buzz of electricity running through him. He felt sort of… mean.

Which was unsettling, because he was pretty sure the last time he'd felt bad about playing a trick on someone was when he was ten and he accidentally broke Mary Lou's arm. So he rushed off before he could guilt himself into giving it all away, broke into Edgar's apartment, and busied himself with setting things straight.

(What, there's no law about breaking into somebody's place if you use a key, right?)

He flipped on the tape player at some point, because their taste overlapped somewhere across _The Who _and _Journey_, and _the_ _Rolling Stones _even though Edgar said they were sexist and he felt sort of bad about liking them. Somehow, Marilyn Manson and death metal didn't really suit the mood tonight.

In fact, he felt like _Aerosmith_.

Edgar walked in at about five thirty, flicked on the lights and paused as he noticed the music. He frowned, set down his bag of Chinese takeout, and jumped as the door closed behind him.

With a hand on the door frame, Jimmy grinned at him.

"You…" Edgar started, bewildered. "You… are in my house. Why are you in my house."

"Seemed like a good day for a party," he shrugged. "Check out the table, man."

So Edgar leaned over the ironwork table—probably intended to be patio furniture, once upon a time—and hesitantly pulled the lid off a blank white box. A little chocolate cake sat inside, nothing too fancy but, still, very much a cake. He looked back, a hand curled around the cardboard hinge, eyes sort of wide.

And then there were tears running down his cheeks and he was falling to the chair behind him like his legs were cut at the knees, and Jimmy started to panic.

"Oh Jesus Christ," he cursed, dashing over to the table, "I fucked it all up, didn't I? Did I get the date wrong? Did somebody else die? Were you goin' to—"

A tear-spotted hand pressed against his mouth and cut him off. Edgar looked up at him and he was smiling, okay _what_?

"It's great Jimmy," the older man hiccupped, smearing drops hastily into little lines of liquid across his face.

"Ooookay, then why are you cryin' an' shit?"

"Ah," Edgar sighed, grinning blearily, "you're going to call me a fag again, and I don't really blame you. I'm crying because, you know, because I'm… happy."

Jimmy looked down at him. "…the _fuck_ man," was all he could manage. The hell was that about?

"How… did you know it was my birthday?" Edgar asked, quietly. "I never tell people. Not even Damon knows."

Jimmy decided not to mention the porn and everything. "…I'm amazin', that's how."

Just then the song switched, and suddenly "Dream On" was sliding down the hall, and Edgar was smiling like he was happy enough to keel over at any second - and Jimmy supposed that it was okay if he had no clue what had just happened because, after all, he didn't understand Edgar a lot of the time anyways. He could ignore the completely inexplicable tears if it mean everything was okay.

"I got us some wine to go with that cake," the younger man announced, examining his nails like _no big deal_. "It's over in the corner. It's kinda cheap but y'know I ain't exactly made outa money."

Edgar glanced back at the case. "Now how did you manage _that_?"

"Oh, I got friends in high places," he replied, grinning a little to himself. Actually getting alcohol from a legit store was a bit tricky. Man, had he traded a few favors for that one. It was worth it though.

For a moment, his friend just stared at the green bottle, and then back at the cake, and then he was standing and pulling Jimmy into the tightest hug of his life, possibly cracking some of the weaker bones between his shoulders and spine.

"I should be mad at you," Edgar whispered, lightly, "but you know I'm not."

Jimmy just sort of grinned like an idiot and wondered why a simple hug made him feel like he was stoned out of his mind.

In a few minutes they'd broken out the cake and Edgar's Chinese takeout and the bottle of inexpensive but really not bad wine, and Edgar made up some bullshit about underage people being okay to drink on private property, and Jimmy switched to a _Queen_ tape—which was one of those things he avoided talking about with the guys because _Queen_ had always been a touchy spot for a couple of the more hardcore dudes, and he didn't want them thinking he was a fag or anything.

"I got you a present," Jimmy announced, between his second and third glass of wine. "'s not much, but I know you wanted one an' all."

He pulled a bag out from under his chair, hoping that Edgar didn't expect a big wrapped thing with a bow because gift-wrapping was for girls and he was already on thin ice with his masculinity. He tossed it over the table, his aim sort of off because he was starting to feel that third glass.

"_Paradise Lost_?" his teacher asked, lifting the book from its plastic case.

"Heard you complaining about it to Damon," Jimmy explained. "I think y'said you lost your last copy?"

Edgar looked up at him, gripping the little book tightly. "I know this is strange," he murmured, "because it's usually you asking me this question, but…"

Looking away, Edgar reached up and pulled off his glasses. "…Why are you being so nice to me?"

Jimmy frowned.

"'Cause I want to," he shrugged, "an' I always do what I wanna do."

The evening wore on, and he finally got to get fully smashed with Edgar after all this time. About the last thing he remembered before he fell asleep on the couch was telling his friend that he had _another_ kind of cake too, if he was interested, and Edgar pushing him out of his chair saying that he _still_ wasn't gay.

And what the hell, he actually got to sleep by like ten o'clock at night. That _never_ happened. Ever.

And double what the hell, he slept over at his friggin' teacher's house and they didn't even have sex.

Before the final curtain closed on that evening, Jimmy remembered a pen in his hand and a quick, blurry glance at the soft-breathing form of his companion. A moment of thought, and then nothing.

All of which brings us back to Jimmy standing outside the school with the world's dumbest smile on his face, because when they drove into the school the next morning—separate cars, like they were coming from two totally different places, _yeah_ _right_—and made their way into the second floor classroom, Edgar had _Paradise Lost_ tucked under one arm and this incredibly sheepish look on his face. That man had the poker face of a two-year old.

And the bell rang. And class started. And Jimmy was a jerkoff like usual. And towards the end of the period, the room settled into silence as thirty or so students tried to finish their latest worksheet, and so did Jimmy because you know, he was actually putting the effort into this one class.

Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted _Mr. Vargas_ reaching for the book, looking sort of guilty because he really needed to be working on his lesson plan instead. Just out of curiosity, Jimmy paused in the middle of scribbling down _functional fixation_ and sort of half-glanced at his teacher, holding his breath as careful hands opened to the title page.

And _Mr. Vargas_ made this quick little gasping sound that yeah, Jimmy heard because he sat at the goddamn front of the room.

And the bell rang.

And Jimmy looked up at the older man.

And Edgar stood up, dropped the book, made a jerky _come here_ motion.

The younger man made his way over as the rest of his classmates filed out, thirty half-awake teenagers stumbling through the door and towards their second period, while Jimmy made his way around the edge of the desk still holding his breath. His skin twitched like that shivering moment before the last player shows his hand.

As the last kid stepped out of the room, Edgar grabbed his student by the collar and dragged him into the office, nearly flung him against the wall and kissed him harder than he'd ever been kissed before in his fucking _life_.

And Jimmy pretty much melted into a pool of goo on the office floor.

"_You_," Edgar panted between kisses, "_are going to kill me_. I swear to God, you'll be the death of me."

And as Jimmy stumbled out of the office, he caught sight of his gift's inside cover, where he'd scribbled a note last night as he watched Edgar fall asleep beside him on the couch.

_Happy birthday faggot_, he'd written.

_I think I love you._

END


	7. Introspection

"Introspection"

AN: even though this plot was suggested by a reviewer (Reality Bores Me), it turned out completely different from the suggestion. To begin with, there's no Little Mermaid. Isn't that just typical. It's actually PERFECT SPRING WEATHER WHERE I LIVE RIGHT NOW, which makes the whole venture quite fitting for me, at least.

* * *

Edgar never really had time for vacations. He did get the summers off, these last couple years—a good reason to go into education, although there aren't many others. Old habits die hard, alas, and with those god-forsaken student loans hanging over his head like the sword of Damocles, he rarely allowed himself more than the spare evening of mind-numbing Monty Python marathons when he was feeling particularly worn out.

Well, that and the odd bottle, here and there.

So when the Senior trip in April turned out to be an excursion to the beach (one particular beach, the one that everyone in town migrated off to eventually), Edgar was surprised to find his luck turning up. He hadn't been to St. George since he was… probably twelve.

"Funny thing," Edgar had mused, glancing back at his open email for the fifth time in seconds. "When Jenny signed me up to chaperone this thing, I had no idea she was actually doing me a favor."

"She wasn't," Jimmy called back, from his place at the white-board. "You're the closest thing to a responsible adult this school's _got_."

The teen stepped back to admire his graffiti, a phallic symbol and some band logos.

"Okay, erase that _now_. You're such a delinquent."

"Y' think _this_ is delinquency?" his student demanded, brow raised. "I'll show you some _real_ delinquency."

Edgar made a shooing motion. "If this involves another one of your hormonal fantasies, I think I'll pass."

"Aww, c'mon _Mr. Vargas_, just this once? I'll make it good for you."

The computer made a chiming noise and Edgar rolled his eyes. "Like you even know _how_."

The younger man clutched at his chest. "That hurts. You cut me deep, teach."

Edgar glanced at his desk, at the already dog-eared copy of _Paradise Lost_. Then he looked back at Jimmy.

"Oh, save it," his former councilor sighed. "Come over here and show me how to work this 'yahoo' thing again. I swear, it's like I was born in the dark ages or something."

* * *

Two weeks later, Edgar was sitting next to his most obnoxious student on a bus heading oceanward. The sun burst across his window, and the air conditioning buzzed somewhere around his feet—only the best of the best for the Academy of Science, seeing as they clearly weren't spending their impressive budget on Edgar's paycheck.

He looked sideways at his ward-of-the-moment. The kid really understood how to manipulate the penal system to his advantage—just the right amount of mayhem and a well-placed "_please_ don't throw me in the briar-patch", and Jimmy found himself sitting comfortably next to his favorite teacher.

"You're the only one who can make him behave," Mr. Collins had announced, exasperated. "Just keep an eye on him for the rest of the day, okay? Great."

If Edgar hadn't been secretly glad for the company, that presumption would have been struck him as rude. In this case though, he was happy to have the aisle seat filled with the lanky body of someone he could actually talk to.

Sunlight caught in the spikes of Jimmy's hair and the metal of his headphones, and Edgar found himself wondering if maybe they spent too _much_ time together. Hanging out after school, running into each other at the mall, his birthday—they were like… they were like friends. More than friends, if you asked Jimmy.

Rule number one of being a Vargas is you do _not_ examine your own problems. Nevertheless, the better part of a school year was severely testing his ability to uphold that rule.

His gaze drifted down to black nails tapping out some death-metal rhythm on the back of the seat. It wasn't worth considering that he wasn't completely _un_attracted to the kid. He was a student. Not just a student, but a patient as far as the school was concerned. Hardly even an adult. Eighteen, ripped out of an unstable family and tossed into the unprepared arms of one fancy atheist private school, which translated practically as _Edgar's arms_ for all the warm fuzzies you'd get from the rest of the staff.

He had no right, morally or rationally, to take Jimmy up on his repeated, increasingly serious offers. That would be so incredibly out of line.

Plus, you know, Edgar _wasn't gay._

Really.

Promise.

The teacher snapped out of the begrudging train of thought when a sharp elbow planted itself in his side.

"Hey, snap outta it," the younger man whispered, holding his headphones away from his ears. "Y' look like you're contemplating your death again. Leave that shit to the goths, man."

"I'd prefer that your friends did _not_ contemplate my death," Edgar whispered back, fighting down an errant smile. "I'm afraid they might take it a bit too seriously."

The teen waved a careless hand. "Here," he muttered, offering the speaker resting on the shoulder between them. "I've got some… y'know."

"You make it sound like drugs," the teacher snorted, grudgingly curious. "How do you propose we both listen to the same headphones?"

"Well, we'll look like dumbasses," Jimmy admitted, glancing across the aisle. "But, you know what? Whatever."

"Unexpectedly mature of you," Edgar noted, thinking that the Jimmy he'd met not even six months ago would have died before willingly looking like a dork. Impressive, the ways he'd changed, but that was growing up for you.

The younger man grabbed his companion by the chin—oh—and pressed their faces together, slid one speaker over Edgar's head and snapped it across his ear. A dull buzz of sound immediately formed itself into music, and familiar music at that.

"Billy Joel?" he inquired, a little shocked.

He could feel Jimmy wincing against his cheek. "I know y' like him. Just don't tell the guys, okay?"

Edgar blinked, and then after a moment he leaned in against his student, wondering at the alien sensation of skin against his skin. He closed his eyes.

He'd worry about the implications some other time.

* * *

St. George beach had a reputation for being about as varied in population as any geographical location short of New York City. Black, white, Latino, gay, straight—it all funneled back to the same place. Edgar liked that, although he did wonder why the administration had decided this was a good place to send two hundred eighteen-year-olds.

"—and if you get lost," Mr. Roberts was telling them, brushing sand off his dress slacks, "ask a bum for directions or something. Meet back here at five. Anybody who drowns is automatically suspended."

While Roberts assigned students to 'safety groups', Edgar looked off towards the changing stations, imagining how uncomfortable the ride back to home base was going to be. He really hoped there were some showers in there, or this was going to get ugly.

"Your boss is a douche," Jimmy whispered, not _quite _loud enough to be overheard past the ocean and a hundred muttering kids.

"That's not nice," Edgar muttered back, which was better than "you don't say."

The teen looked down at the black bag in his chaperone's hand, already distracted. "Hey, you got a swim-suit in there?"

(This was going to be a long day.)

The older man gave him a thoroughly unimpressed look. "Yes, Mr. Eurige, that is generally what people bring with them to the beach."

The eyes that trailed down Edgar's form were uncomfortably heated, and he found himself ducking away from the Cheshire grin. "That is _not_ appropriate."

"Aw, I ain't even said nothin'."

_You don't have to. Believe me, that look spoke for itself._

"What about you," Edgar switched the subject, "where's your change of clothes?"

They both looked down at the teenager's empty hand, and then up at his black jeans and fishnet undershirt. Edgar arched one patient brow.

Jimmy shrugged. "Do I look like the kinda guy who owns a swimsuit?"

"Seriously? _Seriously_? You came all the way to the ocean and you're not even going to swim? Jimmy, I hate to say this, but you are one _unbelievable_ idiot sometimes. You're going to burn up."

The younger man crossed his arms self-consciously. "Goths don't burn," he insisted. "They simmer."

Edgar groaned. "Have fun alone on the beach," he said, and dragged his notably full bag off towards the changing rooms.

When he emerged five minutes later—okay, okay, maybe it was more than five minutes but his hair was being stupid and he had to make sure his shorts looked alright—he was cursing the absolute abomination that was men's public restrooms. There was no _way_ the women's half was that bad.

He tucked his bag into the carriage of the bus, rubbed his bare shoulders nervously, and looked around for his student. He couldn't have gone far. There was no way the kid would pass up a chance to ogle his councilor, not for all the bikinis on the beach.

Someone tapped his shoulder.

He turned to see Jimmy grinning smugly, dressed in his fishnet undershirt and the sliced off remains of his black jeans. He looked like a photograph in black and white.

"You…" Edgar stuttered, "You just cut up your pants. _Seriously_?"

The boy examined one chipping set of nails. "Pretty rad, huh? I was havin' a punk moment, divine inspiration y'know."

"Where did you get the _scissors_? I know for a fact that Roberts locks them up whenever you're on the bus."

Jimmy grinned. "Pickin' locks is baby stuff. This school totally underestimates what I'm capable of." The grin turned sharper. "Now, let me get a look at ya."

The younger man grabbed Edgar by the hips and spun him around, making an appreciative noise.

"Nice to know you're human under all that starch, Edgar. Huh. Not that I wouldn't have been up for some robosexual action, if it came to that."

The older man felt his face heating up. "Would you _please_ stop that, before I have to punch your lights out?"

The thin fingers on his hips withdrew. Jimmy was still taking in the sight when he turned back, and looking criminally pleased. After a beat, the teen lifted one hand to his face and sniffed it.

"Smells like you," he grinned.

Edgar stared at him. "You… you are so fucking _creepy_ sometimes."

And he stomped off with the world's weirdest teen hot on his heels.

* * *

"Here," Jimmy was saying, grinning like he won the lottery. Or burned down the academy, which was honestly more in his line of interest.

His eyeliner was smudged and melted from an hour of dashing in and out of the water, trying to dunk classmates and strangers alike and generally making a nuisance of himself. At that moment he had a hand on the rock face jutting out into the ocean, running chipping fingers over the sandy stone.

"It's just under this," he went on, sliding around the far side. "It's gotta be underwater some of the time, but right now it's like, the perfect hiding place."

Edgar pressed a steadying hand against the boy's back, wishing desperately that he was better balanced. "You played fort as a kid, didn't you?"

Jimmy snorted. "Oh hell no. You think the other kids wanted to play with _me_? Fat chance."

"Surely you had friends at some point. You're not _entirely_ unlikable," Edgar pointed out, fighting now a grin.

His student shrugged, and Edgar could feel the muscles shifting under his hand. "Not since kindergarten. I tried to convince Shane Goldberg I was a vampire an' it all went downhill from there. He probably still has the scars, too."

"You bit him?"

"Well, how the hell else do you prove you're a vampire? Oh, okay, here's the entrance."

It didn't surprise Edgar in the least that Jimmy had managed to find this cave, even though they'd been at the beach for less than two hours. Jimmy could find things that no one else could, see things that no one else could see. For every twenty people who will tell you _no, it's just a shadow, don't worry about it_, there's a Jimmy saying _yeah, hold on, I'll go take a look_.

They ducked under the lintel of a roughly man-sized tunnel, feet digging into chilly sand, hands trailing against wet stone. The sound of breathing magnified around them like the sound of soft waves.

"It's a good thing I'm not claustrophobic," the older man muttered, refusing to remove his hand from the warm shoulder. In all practicality, he'd probably kill himself without the extra balance.

The tunnel opened up into a vast cavern, what little light bounded into the room with them disappearing somewhere in the depths. Edgar let out a wondering breath and found it returned to him in a whisper. Damp sand underfoot smacked with his companion's footsteps.

"In Xanadu did Kubla Khan, a stately pleasure dome decree," the teacher recited, "where Alph the sacred river ran, through caverns measureless to man, down to a sunless sea."

"You got somethin' for everything, Edgar."

"Well, for a good portion of it anyways."

In the following quiet, Edgar peered into the darkness, wondering where the cavern ended and the earth began. A few thoughts occurred to him, some less poetic than others—wondering what would happen to them when the tide came in fell into the latter category.

"I never played fort or anything," Jimmy spoke up, somewhere to Edgar's left, "but I went explorin' all the time. I was fuckin' Indiana Jones. Some of my best memories, y'know, nearly getting myself killed tryin' to climb the biggest rock I could find. Drove Dad crazy, keepin' up with me an' runnin' a house alone at the same time."

"I'll bet."

"I just had to, y'know? There's somethin' about findin' that one spot nobody else found, the top of that one tree nobody else can climb. Can't resist it. Makes me feel like I'm really livin', none of the other shit matters."

With eyes opened to the darkness, Edgar tried to imagine the thrill of discovery for little Jimmy Eurige years ago, what it must have been like to escape reality for a few minutes. To succeed.

Funny enough, he didn't feel too different himself, here and now.

"It's somethin' you can do alone," the younger man was saying. "Y' don't need people around to know you did it right. You don't need company."

"No," replied Edgar, who had spent his youth reading for much the same reason. "But company's nice, sometimes."

A cool, gritty body pressed against his, arm curled around his shoulder. Waves and the soft sound of breathing washed through the cavern.

"You're such a sap."

* * *

At some point in the day, Edgar found himself sitting on the beach, watching the tide come in. It's a sad thing to have an artist's soul without an artist's talent to express it. He wished he'd been better at poetry. The white caps and veins running through the waves deserved something more than mute contemplation.

Jimmy disappeared a while back and, fortunately, had not been chasing after a pair of well-tanned legs. Edgar was not looking forward to bailing the kid out of sexual harassment charges—not everyone was as lenient as him. Eyes closed, he hoped that nothing dramatic would happen whilst he was spacing out.

The next time he peaked out into the afternoon sunlight, he spied the delinquent a few feet away, standing awkwardly alone on the sand. He reached for his glasses, wondering how long he'd been out.

"Hey," he called at the beach's only goth, "why so serious?"

The black haired man turned, and Edgar realized with a start that it wasn't Jimmy at all. Glasses on now, he noticed that no, those were not his student's bizarrely cut off shorts—and anyways, this guy was wearing boots. On a beach. Boots.

"Oh," the teacher groaned, "Uh, I'm sorry… sir. I thought you—I thought you were my, uh, student."

The stranger looked down at him, a curious sort of look on his sharp face. The dark lines under his eyes were not the product of smudged eyeliner, but rather outright sleepless circles. Wow. And god, but those were some impressive boots.

"Your student, huh?" the stranger murmured, appraising him. "And why are you here with your _student_?"

You know how sometimes you meet someone and you can't shake the feeling that they're _judging _you, even from the first word?

"Er," Edgar replied, eloquently. His face heated up, and it wasn't from sunburn. "We… I… It's the senior trip, you see. The administration likes to take the graduating class somewhere in Spring, um, just typical stuff. It's not like I'm here with him—well, I am here with him, but it's not just us—I mean, it _is_ just us but that's only because I was assigned to watch him…"

The stranger was still looking at him, examining him like a bug under a microscope or a lunatic in a laboratory. Edgar's skin crawled.

"I'm sorry," the brunette sighed, "let me start over. Hello, I'm Edgar. Edgar _Vargas_. Who might you be?"

The black-haired man blinked at him. "…Johnny…" he replied, sounding unsure. "Johnny Sea."

Not much of a last name. Edgar smiled anyways, because that was what you did when you introduced yourself. Besides, he had such nice boots. Surely someone with that taste in footwear couldn't be all bad.

"Pleased to meet you," Edgar finished. "…Are you… here alone?"

"Why? Is there something wrong with being alone?"

Edgar held up his hands. "Of course not. It's just strange that you're dressed like that, considering the locale."

Johnny looked down at himself, and then off at the nearest gaggle of bikini-clad girls—a little revulsion there—and then back at Edgar. "Maybe," he admitted, grudgingly. "There's no point in flashing that much skin, like you're trying to impress some nameless omnipotent audience all the time. It's just another excuse for humans to make everything about sex—they can't just jump in a body of water for the fun of it, the philistines; everything has to be about mating rituals and how many fads you can pack into a three inch piece of clothing. Besides… I can't swim."

The sudden melancholy atmosphere that swept over the stranger made Edgar's brain hurt. Talk about your mood swings.

"I'm… sorry?"

Johnny looked up at him, angry again. "I _hate_ that word. It's so empty of any real meaning. What do you have to be _sorry_ for, anyways?"

Edgar shrugged and flopped back onto his towel, emotionally exhausted already. "For saying 'sorry', it would appear."

The unusual man _hmm-_ed. "Who's your student—Edgar, was it? It's not an obnoxious boy with a tattoo on his right cheek is it? You're not going to be happy if it is."

"Er, no. He looks a bit like you, actually—freckles, though, and he's not wearing boots."

"Oh," Johnny looked vaguely relieved. "That's good. I'm not sure where I put the other one. Are you waiting on this student of yours?"

Edgar raised a brow, but he really didn't want to get into the first half of that reply—for some reason. He just, you know, didn't feel like it. Right now.

"I'm not waiting for him, per say," the teacher answered, looking up into the blue depths of the sky. "He'd laugh himself into a coma if he thought I was sitting here pining after him. Jimmy's a good kid—er, some of the time—but he doesn't need that kind of ego-stroking."

The strange man was looking at him again, studying him for some reason. You got the feeling that he didn't really view people as _people._ It made Edgar a little bit nervous, and a whole lot curious. Psychologists, what can you do?

"I get the feeling you wouldn't like him," Edgar mused, idly, eyes still on the sky. "He's hard to get along with. A little creepy, and little stupid, sometimes. I think he'll be the death of me."

"But you like him," Johnny said, sounding as if he was trying to decode a passage in Latin. "Why could you possibly get out of having someone like that around?"

Edgar shrugged, shoulders brushing against his towel. "I like him, I guess. Sometimes just liking somebody is enough, even if they happen to be a dumb-ass teenage delinquent."

The man continued to stare at him.

"Haven't you had someone you just… liked? You know, somebody you just want to be around? Um… someone who made you happy?"

A light went off above the stranger's head. The sharp look in his near-black eyes went soft, flicking down somewhere along the beach. "Oh. Yes. I suppose so."

Edgar peered off in the same direction. "Are you here with them?"

"Her. And no, we just… happened to find ourselves in the same place."

"Well then, that's what I meant. It's like everything is pulling you together."

Johnny looked a little sheepish for a second, and then suddenly serious. "I've been toying with the idea of asking her out, for a while now. Sometimes it seems like a good idea and sometimes it sounds terrible. I can't make up my mind. What do you think?"

Edgar settled back into the towel, feeling the sand shifting under him. Advice he was prepared for. Advice he was good at. He contemplated the question as yellow sunlight sank into his skin, driving away the last chill from the spring ocean.

"Do you think she would say yes?"

"I don't know, I don't know why she even talks to me to begin with."

"Ah. Then my advice is to hold on. You don't need to rush anything, you know? Wait until you understand her a little better."

"Oh."

Waves curled onto the sand below them, a soft rumble for a soft blue sky. And Edgar was thinking.

"What about your… person?" the stranger asked. "Your student. Will you ask him out?"

The teacher's jaw dropped. "I… what?"

"It's the same, right? If I want to ask Devi out, then you must want to ask him. Isn't that what you said?"

"Well, I…"

"And it's not as if he doesn't have free will. Teenagers aren't any stupider than the rest of the population; they can make decisions for themselves. If a teenager picks up a gun and shoots his parents, you can't blame the guy who sold him the gun. That's just idiotic."

"I'd like to think those scenarios are entirely different—"

"And if you think I have prejudices against a group that's different from me, then I may have to hurt you. Direly. I dare you to say so, see what happens."

"Er, no, I can see you're a very open minded individual."

Johnny brightened. "I like you. I thought I might have to kill you because you yell at strangers on the beach, but I don't think I will."

"Uh, ahaha. Thanks," Edgar said, deciding to take that as a poorly delivered joke.

"Do you—"

"Hey Edgar, who's that?"

Edgar tilted his head backwards and found himself looking up at the looming form of his student. Speak of the Devil, and the Devil shall appear—in his own good time, of course.

The older man smiled and sat up properly. "This is Johnny Sea. We were talking about… people."

"Disgusting little goblins," Johnny muttered, reaching down for a black bag half-buried in the sand.

Jimmy gave the stranger a cold look. In return, the stranger ignored him completely, visibly receding into his own mind.

"Have a nice day, Edgar Vargas," he said, in a near monotone. "I'll be sure to remember you. As for your friend, I'll do my best to forget him."

The two of them watched him wander away, down the shore and towards a gaggle of college girls who didn't look like they would take kindly to his presence. Without thinking, Edgar turned his attention away and never thought to glance back.

"Man, what a loser."

Edgar looked up, surprised. "He reminded me of you," he admitted, "a little."

"What, a pretentious ass like that? I'm offended, Edgar."

"He was pessimistic," the older man pressed on, "but sort of hopeful. Violent, a little deviant. He looked quite a bit like you, too."

Jimmy scowled. "Should I be jealous?"

His teacher laughed lightly. "Don't worry, I'm not going to run away with him." He thought about it for a moment. "Besides, I think he's probably a hard person to care about."

A snort. The younger man grabbed him by the shoulder and pulled, so that they were standing together. "Yeah well, as long as we're clear that I'm better. Way better. If I catch you pining after that guy, I'll kidnap you and tie you to my bed."

"You always say that," Edgar replied, brushing sand off his shoulders. "I doubt we'll ever see him again, anyways."

"Yeah, you better not," Jimmy muttered, and then glancing back at the place where Jonny had disappeared: "but he did have some nice boots."

Edgar thought about looking back but decided not to, for some reason. "Yes," he sighed, "I thought so too."

* * *

The ocean is cold, the sand is warm, the sky is clear. Every perfect moment you ever hoped for is alive and well. Yes, there's a fine sheet of salt wrapped around your skin and yes, there's an uncomfortable amount of sand sticking to your ankles and every other corner of your body—but it's alright, because the figurative world is far away for a few hours, leaving behind the world of sensations and experiences. The present.

And that's what Edgar tried to carry back with him, as he stepped onto the carpet steps of the bus, with sand scraping between his feet and the soles of his sneakers. Listening to Roberts chew out a student who hadn't managed to make it back in time for roll call. Reaching for the clip board with the roll on it, because nobody else was offering to take care of business.

He had to keep that sensation if it killed him. He had to remember what it was like to be at peace, watching the water come in and out, standing in the darkness underneath a ton of tawny rock.

It was slipping away.

And then Jimmy slid into the seat beside him, complaining about some anonymous jerkoff in the men's room, and Edgar found himself smiling.

The slipping halted.

And as the engine rumbled to life, Edgar turned to observe that emotion. He closed his eyes and reached out for it, trying to touch the root of the thing—and like northern magnets bearing down on southern, he slid around and around the core of it, unable to reach.

…_Nice to know you're human under all that starch, Edgar_…

_… But company's nice, sometimes_…

… _What about your… person_?

…_I think I love you_.

Rule number one of being a Vargas is you do _not_ examine your own problems.

So he didn't.


	8. Balance

"Balance"

Because every Mmy/Edgar story has to have them sleeping on a couch together at least once. Everybody cheer for me, I've conquered my disturbing bout of writer's block and self-criticism! What? What do you mean you don't care?

* * *

Jimmy was at the mall.

Not that there was anything particularly unusual about that; he spent pretty much every minute at the mall that wasn't checked off for the tedium of school or quality time with Edgar. It was a good place to see while being seen, and what was the fun in looking different if nobody was going to see it?

Besides, the goth chicks liked the west end of the food court and Jimmy's crew was pretty much guaranteed hookups to spare if they dropped the right names. Mostly band names. It wasn't hard, Jimmy had often reflected, since the difference between his people and their people was more in name than function. Same bands, same dreary outlook—more anger, more damage to public property spawning on their end of the court, but chicks dug that kind of _fuck the system_ attitude anyways.

At the moment, Jimmy was pretending to listen to one of them—Alyssa or Azrael or something—wax eloquent about the murky depths of this little store she'd just visited, very exclusive, and how she'd taken the sign for the shop down yesterday so nobody else would find it. In actuality, he was contemplating another piercing. Everybody else had at least two more than him, except Vlad because Vlad was a fucking seven foot tall monster of Cossack intimidation.

And then Chico shoved an elbow into Jimmy's skinny ribs.

"The _fuck_, man," Jimmy hissed, pushing what passed for his best friend off the bench and onto the soda syrup-coated tile. "You want me to crack your head open?"

Chico whined out a creative mixture of curse words, staring at a hand that was now coated in salt and crumbs. "Fine, Christ, that's the last time I try to show _you _anything interesting."

"An' what's so interestin' you gotta snap my ribcage open?"

From his bed of filth, Chico pointed towards the Chinese restaurant on the east side of the food court. "It's your preppy boyfriend again."

Instantly, Jimmy forgot entirely about Alyssa or Azrael or whatever her name was, who had been quietly seething since Chico cut her off. That makes it sound like a bigger deal than it actually was, since he kind of got sick if he hung around girls for too long and getting laid had probably never been in the cards besides.

But either way, he forgot her existence completely.

"How long have you guys been dating anyway?" Chico was asking, pulling himself back up onto the relative safety of the bench.

"Oh, fuck if I know," Jimmy muttered, automatically. Should he go over there? Should he bring Edgar back here? Would Edgar hit him again, like last time? When he got embarrassed, he got _violently_ embarrassed.

"Hey. Does he go down?" Chico asked, curiously, like he was trying to imagine it. Jimmy vaguely considered that it was probably a creepy thing to imagine and then tossed it aside. Chico never had screwed another dude, not even after all these years. It was expected that he'd be curious.

"Like the fuckin' Titanic," Jimmy responded, which was true as long as you counted the episodes he played regularly in his head. In his room. In the shower.

"He take you to all his preppy parties?" Chico asked, and whereas the blowjob question had sounded curiously interested, this question sounded like horrified fascination. "Do you wear suits? Do you drink punch? Do you talk about _football?"_

Jimmy rolled his eyes so hard it hurt, although Chico didn't seem to appreciate this. "No, we don't go to any fag-ass parties. Jesus, whacha think I am, some kinda show pony?"

"I dunno. I've heard about this stuff. Bunch of fruity gay guys nab some poor goth and _BAM_, Draco comes out Donny. With a fuckin' sweater tied around his fuckin' shoulders like some fifties yuppie refrigerator ad. Don't wanna see that happen to you."

That made Jimmy interested enough to stop eye-stalking his pseudo-councilor for a moment. Since when did Chico care about him past the "pushing you off a wall so the cops won't see whatever you're smoking" stage of a relationship?

"Hey, Edgar isn't like that, okay? I'm not changin' for nobody. An' he's not a prep either, he reads _poetry_ an' shit."

At the other end of the food court, the teacher in question was apologizing profusely to red-faced woman, which probably had something to do with the overturned tray splattered across the floor between them. It was a wonder that man had gotten out of high school alive.

Chico snorted. "Not changing my _ass_. Look in a mirror sometime, dude."

Jimmy turned back again, eyes narrowed. "You sayin' I've gone soft?"

On the other end of the table, whatsherface leaned forward, dragging her acne-spotted cleavage over the imitation wood. "Going soft?" she repeated, looking hungrily at Chico. Far as he could tell, most chicks would pick gossip over a hamburger any day, and Jimmy had enough of a reputation that her mouth probably watered at the thought.

"_Shut_ it," Jimmy snapped. "Get your shit an' leave. _Now_."

The girl stared at him, dumbfounded, and then snatched up her purse and stalked off in her five inch black heels.

"See," Chico insisted, bending closer. "That's what I'm talkin' about. Before Christmas, you woulda called her a cunt and thrown your drink at her or something. It's like you don't wanna _hurt_ people anymore."

Jimmy opened his mouth to argue, but nothing came out. "….Well… so what if I don't wanna hurt people all the time?"

"Dude, you even _hear_ yourself? Hating shit is practically what _defines_ us. What else _is _there?"

Jimmy grabbed his tray and shot to his feet. "So this is what it comes to, huh? You finally tired'a walkin' two steps behind me, traitor?"

The other boy grabbed his arm, a tight grip that was all muscle and no nails. They stared at each other.

"Jimmy," he said, quietly, serious as the low hum of a stealth plane taking off. "I ain't saying _I_ got a problem with it. I'm just warning you, okay? I don't wanna see what'll happen if they guys find out you're going soft for the geek with the goatee."

"I'm not. Going. _Soft." _Jimmy insisted, resisting the impulse to look back at the east side of the court.

"Okay," Chico sighed. He let go of the bruising forearm and sat back. "Prove it. Come out with us again, tonight. Just like you used to. You can spare a day at that fag asylum they call a school, can't you?"

This time Jimmy did look back towards the eastern corner, but there was no hint of the curious figure who had traipsed into his life without a hint of apology. Part of him wanted to drop his tray and run out of the mall, scour the parking lot for the dull-blue Volvo he knew was waiting out there.

He looked back down. "Yeah," he replied, straightening his spine, "I can spare a day."

-0-

It was some time in the middle of the night. Jimmy had slipped out of his dorm—slapped on a spiked collar, closed the door quietly, slid into the hall and out into the parking lot with an inky grace—and down through the school gates, climbing over the wrought iron gate that was mostly symbolic anyways. There was a car waiting for him, a beat up old 1981 model—27 years old and starting to sound its age—and he threw himself into the backseat with a dangerous flail of jewelry.

Chico was slouched up front, and he made some comment about Jimmy's hoity-toity school that resulted in a vicious kick to the spine and an unpleasant assertion concerning his mother. They drove into the darkness with the headlights switched off.

Jimmy had missed these midnight get-aways, in the last few months. Somewhere deep down he might have been willing to admit that he wasn't entirely bad to the bone—he'd stayed away from the midnight party scene because he couldn't afford to miss too much sleep, not if he wanted to make it to class sort of on time. And now that he had a first period, Edgar's first period more importantly, the kid had more or less given up all the weeknight shit. Voluntarily even. He'd put up an attitude and piss off every human being in a mile radius, but in the end he always made it to class.

Because at the heart of the matter, he was toeing the fine line between pain-in-the-ass and too-much-trouble-to-deal-with. He wanted to fuck and fight and break things, but he couldn't afford to go too far. On the ground below that tightrope home was waiting, and the longer he was here at the academy the surer he was that he'd rather die than go back.

Home was death. The academy was life, even if life made him want to drill out his own brains at least once a day from the sheer monotony. He'd decided a long time ago that even when it blows, life is better than the alternative.

Still, Chico's comment at the mall stung, and he figured he could afford missing two class periods in the whole scheme of things. His balancing act encompassed the guys too; he had to keep a grip on their respect, no matter how fancy his school was or how many bashes he slipped out of.

Sometimes it felt like he was being drawn and quartered, actually.

They pulled up to an empty lot, jammed with the carapaces of giant metal beetles glinting in the moonlight. Before they even stepped away from their car, another had pulled up behind it and blocked the entrance. Chico and Vlad highfived, because everybody knew that the bigger the crowd the more trouble you could get in.

From the driver's seat, Chuey muttered something about his ex-girlfriend, in a tone that promised as much drama as property damage.

The party was a whirlpool of heavy metal and vodka, secured to the empty floor of an abandoned building with "Antiques" lettered on the side. Some know-nothing dipshit at the door had the balls to ask them who the hell they were, and Jimmy nearly brained him before someone from inside managed to break it up.

Jesus Christ. As if Jimmy's crew wasn't the most infamous sub-clique in the fucking city.

The doors opened, and Jimmy marched through like he was king of the world, and everyone knew it.

-0-

Sometime like four in the morning, there was a crash in one of the highest windows and then the fucking police showed up. Blue and red lights lit up the dusty panes, and suddenly it was every man for himself, sink or swim, like rats jumping off a shipwrecked boat. Jimmy didn't bother to wait for the guys; he saw an ancient side-door and threw himself at it, just drunk enough not to give a shit about useless extremities (who needs two shoulders anyways?), and busted through the wedge of rust on the hinges before the cops even made it inside.

He always was a talented escape artist.

A shot of electric adrenaline sent him dashing through the parking lot on the balls of his feet, faster than he'd ever bothered to run in gym class. He kept going, fuck if he knew where to, flying down alley ways and between sky scrapers, underneath awnings and out into the moonlight on momentarily empty roads. Out here, at the quiet end of downtown, the world was asleep except for Jimmy.

He kept running.

The roads turned familiar, one by one, until he was pounding along the pavement beside the mall in the middle of the night. He slowed to a stop at a crosswalk, looking back towards the monster of a building and then ahead at the blinking walk signal. He knew this road, more than _knew_ it. Him and this road were co-conspirators. Him and this road were _bros_. And he knew what was waiting a ways down the hill, if he just kept running.

So he did.

-0-

The gate on the apartment complex was even more symbolic than the one on the academy. Seriously, it was hardly even a picket fence, a guy in a _wheel chair_ could probably find a way in. Jimmy jumped the thing without slowing, swinging boots over white-washed boards, and landed in a tumble that rolled him back to his feet as natural as a bat dropping into flight.

Private streets led his feet to a familiar door with 616 glinting fake-golden on it. Jimmy grinned, and it occurred to him that Edgar would not appreciate being woken up at four something in the morning. He slunk around the side, finding the window that Edgar always left unlocked for watching sunsets over the sad little pond that the contractors must have thought _picturesque_.

He grabbed the sill, pushed up on the pane, and looked inside.

And was surprised to find Edgar still awake.

The older man was standing in the middle of what passed for a living room, hunched over an ironing board with something white splayed across it. His hands worked in minute flicks, and his eyes were more focused than a stalker's in the dim light of a single lamp.

After a moment, he stepped back and stared at the fabric _intensely_. Just as he seemed to let out a sigh of relief, a little corner of white popped up from the ironing board. It seemed to be saying "Fuck gravity, and fuck your ridiculous chunk of heated metal too."

"AUGHH!" the older man screamed, throwing his (presumably still hot) iron at the couch. "_Why does it DEFY me_?"

Jimmy put his hands over his mouth, laughing so hard that it threw him back into the rusted out gas barrel behind the apartment with a loud _bang_. He curled up in a giggling ball as a cry of "fuck!" rang through the cracked window.

Biting down on one last giggle, Jimmy stepped back to his makeshift entrance and popped it all the way open, swinging a leg through and smearing the beige carpet with all the dirt he'd picked up running through the city. He looked around the room, fondly, wandering towards the dim lamp tucked away at the edge of it.

Edgar slid back in, seconds later, focused entirely on the window that was now happily letting all the air conditioning out into the night. Jimmy half expected to see a baseball bat clinched in his teacher's manicured hands, and was amused to find instead what appeared to be a huge, shallow pot.

He reached out for Edgar's shoulder, and that pot-like monstrosity nearly bashed his skull in.

"OH GOD," the older man shouted, stumbling away as Jimmy tipped backwards to avoid immanent death. "Who the—_Jimmy_?"

The teen looked up at his shocked councilor, wondering if he might end up concussed after all.

"Hi. Lovely weather we're having."

Edgar looked at him, completely blank, and then shrieked, " _Why can't you use the door like a _normal_ person_?"

"Um… because doors are just another way the Man is keeping me down?"

"…fucking Hell," Edgar muttered, dropping the makeshift weapon next to his iron on the gently sizzling couch. "I cannot believe this. You—don't touch that!"

Jimmy dropped the weird pot immediately. "What _is _this anyways?"

"It's a skillet," the older man replied, automatically. "You make cornbread in it. _What_ are you doing in my house, Jimmy?"

His student shrugged. "I was at a party. We got busted. I ran. Now I'm here. That's really all there is to it."

"You couldn't have driven back to the academy?"

"I caught a ride. Chuey's car is probably at the police station by now, come to think of it. He loves that ugly-ass thing like a baby, he's probably throwing a bitch fit as we speak."

Edgar shook his head and reclaimed the cooling iron from the couch, along with the skillet. "I doubt the academy was much farther away from you than my place."

Jimmy shrugged. "I came here."

A breeze shifted through the room, carrying the scent of a dark world on the precipice of summer. Edgar crossed his arms.

"Well," he said, looking away, "I'm not driving you back to the dorms this time of night. You'll have to sleep here—I'll grab a sheet for the couch. I wake up at 7:30, and you're going to have to deal with it. I don't know, I guess I'll make cornbread for breakfast. The skillet's already out anyways."

He wandered off into the miniature hall, mumbling like that the whole way, and tugged a yellowed sheet from the linen closet. Jimmy watched him go, admiring the body underneath the boxers and wife-beater. It was kind of weird to see the man in anything besides oxfords and slacks, even though they'd been at the beach together before.

"Here," Edgar sighed, tucking the last corner of the sheet underneath slightly burnt cushions. "I'll be in my bedroom if you need me. If, say, another sociopath comes busting through my window."

Jimmy reached out and grabbed his teacher's hands, falling back onto the couch too quickly for more than a startled "Wha?" from Edgar's direction. They landed in a sort of heap across the faux leather.

"Y' really don't get the whole 'sleepover' thing, do you?" the younger man mused, wrapping arms around the body above him. "It's no fun if you go an' sleep in a different room."

Edgar spluttered, which was a surprisingly apt word that Jimmy had just learned a day or two before.

"You—I—this is such a bad—I'm pretty sure technically this constitutes as sleeping with you, and I really am not comfortable with—"

"Oh, shut up."

Edgar made a displeased face.

"Aw, don't look at me like that. It won't hurt nothin', I bet you can hear the alarm go off in here no problem. Just shut up an' sleep, alright?"

The older man closed his eyes and made that sound that he always made when he gave in to a particularly stupid idea and wasn't sure why. "Alright," he muttered, "Alright. But if I wake up naked I'm going to wring your scrawny neck like a tube of toothpaste."

"Now there's some violence!" Jimmy grinned, "And nice imagery."

The teacher said nothing, and by the time that Jimmy thought to ask what had been _up_ with the ironing anyways, the man was asleep half across his chest.

So, okay, maybe he was going soft. But as long as he could balance—as long as he could keep _this_—he figured he'd be fine. And fuck everything else. He fell asleep with a smile on his lips.

… And that was how Jimmy finally managed to sleep with Edgar.

-0-


	9. Tribulation

_Tribulation_

"Don't stand so close to me!"

AN: I should warn you, we are about to go through a period of great drama. Don't worry, my drama tends to be a bit different from other people's. Also, if you can remember, I'd like to take a sort of... poll to see how many people who read this story also read _Eternity in a Pickle Jar_. I would venture to guess all, but if you _didn't_ read it, leave a note saying so. I'd be interested to know. Anonymous reviews are (as they have always been) perfectly acceptable. Love~

* * *

"Sometimes it's not so easy," Edgar hummed, "to be the teacher's pet…"

He slipped papers into stacks, twirling back and forth between his desk and his office like a fall leaf caught in the wind—or, more likely, some absurd unbalanced ballerina. He didn't have a high opinion of his own grace.

"R_eally, _Edgar?"

Startled, the teacher turned back to the doorway whence said criticism had originated. He grinned.

"Damon," he sighed, beckoning the younger man inside. "I haven't seen you in days."

The boy grinned back, white teeth and dark lips, and dropped into a desk at the front of the room. "I've been busy with the band. I think we hit a breakthrough with Randal, he's starting to get the hang of it, you know, _finally_."

"Ah, you're still in the jazz zone then. Far be it from me to impose the _Police_ on you, in that state."

Damon laughed and pulled out a dog-eared copy of the Bhagavad Gita, flipped open to a page in the middle. "So, I wasn't there for the meeting last week, but Alyssa told me that she was leading tonight and I wanted to do some brushing up. I was doing good 'til I hit this section—" he tapped the page "—and now I can't figure out what Krishna is talking about here. I think I need historical context."

The sound of a chair scraping across tile filed the room as Edgar pulled over a desk of his own. With one manicured finger, he pointed to the top of the page and he grinned.

"I think this is the problem—"

They spent the better part of an hour going through the text, bringing up new points and talking about what made a religious text legitimate. Damon had seasonal affective disorder—the which they'd only just figured out in January—and it was nice to see him fully out of the wintery pit of doom and back into the real world.

Honestly, they hadn't been talking as much this year…

Edgar's phone buzzed just as they were getting to the bit about the concept of a singular divinity in multiple religions. He flipped it open, trying to remember if anyone besides the administration had this number.

"Hey," a familiar voice buzzed in his ear, "I found some ball gags on half price. You into that kinda shit?"

He quickly flipped the phone shut, face burning underneath its perpetual tan.

Damon looked at him, critical eyes observing minute details. Edgar had told him a hundred times that he was born to be a criminal psychologist, but right now Edgar just fervently wished he was a little less talented.

"Was that Jimmy?" the younger man demanded, eyeing the cell like it was likely to sprout wings and start playing hymns backwards at any moment.

"Uh," Edgar winced, "I don't know?"

Brown eyes turned hard. "You gave him your _number_? Your _cell_ number? I thought you told me it was only for emergencies!"

"It is," the older man insisted, shoving the little rectangle of grief across the desk. "It's hardly even got any minutes! I just, there was this thing in December and, I swear, it's only supposed to be for emergencies. "

"Yeah, sure," Damon muttered, closing his book. "Look, I didn't want to tell you this, but I think you need to know after all. People have been talking about Jimmy—"

"Damon, _please_. I know you don't like him, but I've got a right to choose my own company."

"No, okay, Edgar, this isn't even about how _creepy_ he is—"

"I hate it when you insult him, I've told you that—"

"Edgar, I wasn't—"

"You think that you're better than him, don't you?"

"Fucking _hell_, Edgar—"

"Please don't curse in front of me."

The younger man jumped to his feet and tossed the Bhagavad Gita across the table with a ringing SMACK.

Edgar's mouth hung open.

"You're so fucking blind," Damon hissed, stilled down to even his twitching fingers. "You think you're this great psychologist, but you're just a blind little kid playing at grown-ups. I'm your friend, _Mr. Vargas_, but if you won't listen to me then _fine_, find out on your own."

And with that, the first person to call himself Edgar Vargas' friend in nearly ten years stomped out the door, leaving an empty chair and a pool of confused misery in his wake.

Outside, it started to rain.

-X-

Edgar stared through a windshield running with tides of rainwater. When the bottom dropped out like this, it was almost like being at the bottom of a lake, encased in a world of liquid silver. Frictionless. His fingers tightened around the steering wheel, storm-paled flesh on black leather. Somewhere at the end of this street, lights were coming on inside a stranger's house.

_You're so fucking blind._

How can you see other people so clearly, and still know nothing about yourself? It's an astounding sort of affliction that doesn't even comprehend its own handicap. He was sightless. Of all the irony. He wasn't even sure where to begin looking.

_You're just a blind little kid_.

Because rule number one of being a Vargas is not to examine your own problems. Edgar was lost and he was still bleeding from the wound Damon had dealt him, and he could hardly think about it without flinching. Damon was always so calm. God, when was the last time he'd heard that voice so loud? He should have let the kid talk, he should have—

The light changed.

But what had Damon even meant? Something about Jimmy, something about him, something that had to be right under his admittedly large nose. And he'd cut Damon off before he could even _start_.

Edgar slid into a left turn lane, alone in the misty gloom. Water pounded across his windshield, and his eyes slid away from the warped vision. A bus stop sat just outside of his car, lit dim fluorescent white in three Plexiglas walls, and his eyes strayed over towards it in search of distraction.

There was someone hunched inside of it.

Edgar squinted out through the driving rain, making out a fishnet sleeve first, and then a familiar glint of buckled boots. He sat back in his seat, swore softly, and threw the Volvo into park. An umbrella in the passenger's seat stretched its metal tendons.

God, he was an idiot, leaving his car parked at a green light. It might not even be Jimmy.

He stepped onto the curb and immediately felt a river of streetwater soaking into his shoes. Drops rattled against the bus stop walls. Edgar slid underneath the narrow covering and took a seat next to the curled form of what was indeed Jimmy Eurige.

"You really need to use your car more often."

Faster than lightening, the kid snapped up, blinking at Edgar as if he was in the middle of a particularly surreal dream, which, who knows, maybe he was.

"Edgar, man," he said, tucking his arms in a little around his torso. "You stalkin' me now?"

"My apartment is right around here, you know that," the older man replied, observing the muffled shivers, rivulets running down the pale neck. It was cold out, if you were soaked.

"Right," Jimmy grinned, teeth clenched a little too tight.

Edgar looked at him for a second longer before sighing and sliding closer, wrapping an arm around the skinny form. "What are you doing out here in this weather?"

"Was fine out an hour ago," the younger man defended, and you could feel the way his shoulders tensed up under the pressure of contact. "The guys ditched me for an eightball in the park. I dunno, two hookers an' an eightball I guess. Whatever. Gotta get myself back to the dorms alone."

Assuming an eightball was something illegal and not a novelty toy for nine-year-olds, that was surprising. The tense muscles under his arm relaxed at last, and the boy's twitching body pressed in a little closer to steal what warmth it could. Edgar closed a hand over a shoulder of soaking fishnet.

"You weren't feeling like breaking the law today?"

Jimmy snorted. "I still plan on fuckin' you into next year the second y' let your guard down. Gotta stay clean for that."

Ah, so it _was_ drugs then.

The older man looked over at his companion for a moment, and it occurred to him that this was the first time he'd held someone—even so half-assedly—in years. Not since college. And as bizarre as it was, he found that he didn't want to break contact, hang the consequences. Hang whatever Damon had been going to say.

But then Jimmy shivered, and Edgar remembered where they were.

"Come on," he sighed, retracting his arm, "get in the car. I can't let you take the bus in this state."

The kid grinned and uncurled, ignoring his own jittering teeth. "Edgar man, you will not be sorry."

Watching as his student—patient—admirer—_friend_ dashed out through the sheet of rain, Edgar took a quiet minute to hope that Jimmy was right. They say the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Let's hope it isn't also paved with the souls of teachers who got in over their heads.

-X-

Damon did not show up to the meet the next day.

No one could offer any explanation. They didn't have to.

-X-

The afternoon after, Edgar was packing up to leave ten minutes past the final bell.

"So I've gotta meet him after school," Jimmy was saying, as he strained to reach something on the top shelf. "Gonna get his ass handed to him, the motherfuckin' pussy."

Edgar looked across the office, pausing mid-motion. The papers he'd been trying to cram into his bag made crinkling noises in his hands.

"You're seriously going to walk right into a fight? I thought you had more self-preservation than that."

A triumphant _aha!_ and then Jimmy was turning back to him with a moonpie in hand. Where the hell were those _coming_ from?

"He called me a faggot," the teen replied, putting on an indignant face. "I'll show _him_ who's a faggot, the douchebag. Put my boot up his ass, see who's laughin' then."

"You call me a faggot all the time," Edgar pointed out, "and I'm your _teacher_."

"Yeah," the younger man shrugged, "but that's 'cause y' are one."

The older man snorted, settling a messenger bag—_not_ a purse, thank you—over his shoulder. He hadn't had an afternoon to himself in weeks, unless you counted the last field trip which he did _not_, and he'd gone the great lengths to rectify that. After the whole debacle with Damon—who still wasn't talking to him—he just needed a break, or something. Maybe giving a homework-free day was cheating, but he'd feel bad about it later when he was rested.

"I never pinned you for the _fisticuffs at dawn_ type," Edgar noted. "I would've thought you valued your face a bit too much."

Jimmy grabbed his backpack—pathetic little thing it was, you could hardly fit two text books inside—and grinned. "Eh, there's saving your face an' then there's _saving_ _face_. I can stand a go here an' there—fight dirty, y'know? 'S worth it when you win."

Edgar headed out of the room and Jimmy followed, catching up in seconds to walk beside him. They were the same height now, although when that had happened Edgar couldn't say. Footsteps ricocheted through the hall, empty but for the two of them. Even fifteen minutes after the final bell, the school was a veritable ghost town.

"Don't get your nose broken," Edgar ordered, after a moment. "And if you crack a rib I'm going to crack your skull, you hear me?"

Jimmy winked one kohl-rimmed eye. "Loud an' clear, Edgar man. I'll bring you back an ear as a token of my _affections_."

"Ugh, please, don't trouble yourself."

The younger man slid one fishnetted arm around his teacher's side, boots and sneakers falling into the same rhythm. Thin fingers wormed their way between cloth and skin.

"Gimme a good luck kiss, teach." The kid grinned like a shark. "Just one."

Edgar squirmed. "Don't stand so close to me," he muttered, tilting his head away from Jimmy's as far as it would go.

"Your mouth says _no_…."

"Okay, stop it. Seriously. Besides, you know what kind of trouble I could get in."

"Riggggghhht. 'Cause there's so many people 'round here."

Almost the second that the words left his mouth, the front door swung open and a girl came dashing into the lobby. Eyes met. There was a moment of frozen silence, and a deafening mantra of runrunrun_runRUN_ pounded through Edgar's head and shit, oh god how was he going to explain this?

How was he going to explain this?

At last, the girl made a move.

"Uhh…" she started, looking confused as hell, "Mr. Vargas, um, I was just coming to see you…"

The brain processes things incredibly fast. In the single second after she trailed off, uncountable responses flew through Edgar's head and were discarded. How suspicious did he look? Could he play it off? Should he make up an excuse? Fired, fired, fired—God, what had he ever done to deserve this clusterfuck of a life?

The second ended, and Jimmy stepped in.

"Kelly," the younger man acknowledged, coldly. "Lookin' like a whore as usual. What's the problem, failed another test? Gonna cheer your way outta this one too?"

Edgar tugged his arm free, falling quickly into the only natural response with relief.

"Jimmy, you will _not_ talk to my students that way. Apologize, now."

"…_What_?" the younger man demanded, taken aback.

"Apologize, or your first period tomorrow is going to resemble Hell on earth in more ways than one."

The boy looked at him like he was trying to figure out if this was serious, and finally he turned back to the girl, scowling. "Sorry."

Kelly sniffed, looking away. "Whatever. So, Mr. Vargas, do you have a minute?"

"Well, ah, actually, I was heading home…"

"It'll only take a minute."

Edgar chanced a glance in Jimmy's direction. He'd been sort of… considering tagging along, just to make sure Jimmy didn't get himself killed. He had a roll of bandages in the car, for just these sorts of occasions.

The teen pretended he didn't notice. "I'll catch ya later, Mr. Vargas," he said, waving it off. "I want my paper, though, before you go."

They both looked down at the bag full of papers.

"…Ah, sure thing." Edgar turned back to Kelly, smiling with relief. "Meet me in my room, ms. Blanch."

As the girl headed for the staircase, Jimmy hooked two finger though his teacher's belt loops. _Again_ with the suspicious physical contact.

"Smooth, Edgar, real smooth."

The older man cocked a brow. "_I _was serious. You can't go around calling my students whores, it's terrible manners and it makes me look like a useless councilor. You can't just accuse people of things because you don't like the way they look."

"Well she _is_."

Edgar sighed. One of these days, they would have a talk about this misogyny business. "I'll try to catch up with you, okay? I've got a first aid kit that I suspect will come in handy."

"A'aight," Jimmy replied, sliding in a little closer. "Don't you take any illicit sexual favors from that chick, you got me?"

"For the last time, not everyone is like _you._ And seriously, don't _stand_ so _close_ to me."

The younger man just grinned, resting his forehead against Edgar's.

"Now, 's that any way to treat the guy goin' out to defend his honor?"

-X-

Monday, the Academy's resident psychologist was crouched behind the main desk in the library trying to find the book he'd mistakenly dropped off, because the school librarian was too busy molesting the coffee machine to help him look for the damn thing. Nobody around here did their damn _jobs_.

The stupid little servant bell dinged above his head, and he debated getting up to help, but he _really_ needed to find this book and _he_ wasn't the librarian around here. Jesus _Christ_, and other such blasphemy.

"—surprised," a voice was saying, female and drifting down from the other side of the counter. "You hear about this sort of thing, but you never, like, think you'll see it."

"It's probably just a rumor," a softer voice replied. "I don't trust Lashana so much."

"But Kelly," the third voice piped up, "Kelly said that—"

"She _only_ said—"

"I think it's true," the first voice asserted, cutting her companion short. "I hate that kid. Some people just need to crawl in a hole and die, you know?"

"But…" the second voice protested, "I like Mr. Vargas."

Behind the counter, Edgar's blood went cold.

"Everybody likes him," the first voice replied, dismissive. "That's not the point. You can't just sit back while that sort of _indecency_ goes on behind classroom doors. Just _imagine_ what they could be _doing…_"

"I just can't see Mr. Vargas like that."

The third voice piped up again. "Phoebe, don't tell me you haven't seen the way they _talk_ to each other. It's like they have this private joke nobody knows about. You remember yesterday, at the end of class?"

"Besides," the first voice picked up again, gleeful. "They're together like _all_ the time. Jimmy brings him coffee, have you noticed? I don't like the way that kid talks, he's creepy as hell. This is just the sort of thing his sick little mind would be into."

"I don't know… I mean, we don't have any proof…"

"Who cares about proof? That little fucktard's gonna get what's coming to him, and I'm gonna be there to see it. C'mon, Mrs. Reneer is probably in the back room again. Anyways, you have to admit, it's all very scandalous."

The voices faded, disappearing off towards the exit.

"I guess," drifted back faintly. "I don't know… maybe…"

And behind the counter, Edgar clutched his copy of _Paradise Lost_ with ice cold fingers.

-X-

Edgar spent two days looking over his shoulder, nearly having a heart attack every time he passed Mr. Roberts, and trying to warn Jimmy without actually warning him. God, god damn, this was what he'd been afraid of but he never thought it would actually _happen_ and fuck, just… just _fuck_.

He wasn't even guilty.

Not really.

And Damon still wouldn't talk to him, but at least now he knew why?

On the third day, he gave up and held Jimmy after class, grabbing his striped sleeve as he headed for the hall. The teen looked back at him as the last of his classmates filed out the door.

"Problem?" Jimmy inquired, looking down at his lately paranoid teacher.

"I…" the older man started, "….there's… You need to know, I overheard this… this conversation and—"

The PA system crackled to life: "MR. EURIGE, PLEASE REPORT TO THE FRONT OFFICE."

Jimmy looked down at him again, frowning. "I gotta go," he said, and then after a second he added, "Don't worry man, it'll be fine."

And Edgar was left cursing at his desk, wishing his goddamn tongue would work a little faster.

Thirty minutes later, Roberts came waltzing through his door like he owned the place—which he did not, regardless of what he might have believed. The principal muttered something to the point of "this way," and led him off towards the main office like a lamb to the proverbial slaughter, though Edgar trailed behind him more like a zombie than anything else.

On the bright side, he could always try to find a better paying job.

Roberts pushed his own office door open, pointed at the one of the chairs normally reserved for kids who got in fights, and announced that he would be back in a minute. Edgar stared at the chair as it sat placidly across from his boss's. Was this what he'd been reduced to?

He took a seat. Five minutes later, Roberts returned with backup.

The assistant principal and Angela Fisher followed him, herding Jimmy along in front of them. The boy stumbled into the other chair, righted himself and propped his boots up on Roberts' desk just like he'd done during his first meeting with Edgar.

"Well hey there, teach," he grinned, looking over at his fellow accused. "Haven't seen you in a couple minutes. How ya been?"

Edgar groaned and hid his face in his hands. Fuck _him_. He never should have kissed the kid. They were fine until that first, stupid kiss. God, he was an idiot.

Roberts cleared his throat, very professional. One of the women standing behind them closed the door.

"Edgar," the principal began, "I'm afraid we have a bit of a dilemma on our hands. We've heard some disturbing rumors in the last few days, very disturbing rumors. Naturally, we're concerned. Very concerned."

The councilor sighed and sat up straight. Might as well go out like a man. "What kind of rumors are we talking about, Harry?"

"Serious ones. Very serious. You and Mr. Eurige have been accused of engaging in a sexual affair. I'm sure you understand what kind of repercussions this has for you, as his councilor and teacher."

_No shit, Sherlock. _

"We have it from a trustworthy source—"

_A sophomore girl, you mean._

"—and of course you know the strict policy for this sort of thing. Do you have anything to say about it, Edgar?"

"I haven't done anything," the psychologist replied, wearily.

Roberts looked at him, and past the façade of sympathy Edgar perceived—not for the first time—that his boss was actually a truly nasty man, deep down. There was something black behind his eyes that meant nobody any good.

But cowards often appear as good men do.

"Regardless," the principal announced, "it's not good form to allow this kind of suspicion in our establishment. I'm afraid we'll have to let you go, if—"

"_Hey_," Jimmy interrupted, sitting forward, "don't I get a say in all of this?"

Roberts turned his attention, and for a second there was nothing in his expression but irritation. That quickly melted into something resembling—at least it was supposed to—pity. "You've been mistreated, I'm afraid. Don't worry, your parents will be informed and we'll set you up with a new psychiatrist. I assure you, none of this will affect your graduation—"

_Won't miss Gossip Girl be disappointed to hear _that_._

"—And none of the other teacher know about this, so you won't have to deal with—"

Jimmy held up a hand, face a mask of disgust. Roberts halted more in surprise than consideration.

"You know that nothing _happened,_ don't you?"

Roberts scowled. "Of course you would say that, Mr. Eurige. Believe me I understand. It's sad, very sad."

Jimmy held up one finger. "First thing," he said, "if you use the word 'very' one more time, I'm gonna rip out your guts and feed them to you, we clear?"

"Mr. Eurige!"

"Second thing—" he held up another finger, "you don't know what the _fuck _you're talkin' about. Somebody's been lyin' to you guys. I swear on my fuckin' mother's grave, I ain't so much as seen Mr. Vargas here naked."

Edgar groaned.

"You don't seem to understand," Roberts insisted, teeth gritted in an entirely unsubtle way. "You have A's in his class and F's in all the others. You have an F in physical education! I don't even know how that's possible!"

Jimmy snorted. "I do my work in his class. You wanna see my binder? 'S not my fault if nobody else in the school knows how to teach a class. B'sides, if I fuck up with him I gotta sit through a counselin' session of him harrassin' me about the damn grades."

"But the witnesses—"

"Don't know jack shit. Lookit me, Mr. Principal. Do I look like the most popular guy in the school?"

"Look here, you can't honestly tell me there's nothing between you!"

"Dude, Mr. Vargas is so _not_ my type. There's no room for me with that massive stick he has shoved up his ass."

Roberts turned to Edgar almost desperate, "Have some decency! You can't just let him lie for you, Edgar! We have witnesses, we have more than enough proof! Just confess already!"

Edgar opened his mouth to reply, but Jimmy jumped in before he could make a sound.

"_Yeah_, Mr. Vargas, tell 'em about all the crazy gay sex we had, on accounta you forgettin' the whole Christian homophobia thing an' actually growin' some balls, tell 'em about actually makin' a _move_ on somebody for the first time in your goddamn life. Seriously, guys? Can we just go home already? I got a chick waitin' for me at the mall this period an' she ain't the sorta girl y' leave on a street corner if ya know what I mean."

"Now see here—"

"No, _you_ see here," the teen shot back. "You don't have a cup to spit in so give it up! An' if you keep on like this I'ma go to the fuckin' newspaper an' spill my guts about how the _most prestigious school in the state_ is blackmailing one of its teachers on false charges!"

Roberts stared.

Jimmy sat back.

"_So_. Fucking. _There_."

Roberts continued staring, no doubt watching the ashes of his latest power play crumble and blow away on the wind. What exactly he'd hoped to get out of this, Edgar was pretty sure he didn't want to know.

Jimmy stood, after a moment. "C'mon, Mr. Vargas," he groused, grabbing the teacher by the collar, "think I'm gonna need another fuckin' therapy session for this shit."

Edgar stumbled after him towards the hall, an apologetic grimace on his face. He paused at the door, meeting the assistant principal's eye. He had a notion that she was on his side now, and Angela too. Whatever went down, he was going to have backup.

He looked back at Roberts, steaming at his desk.

"Teenagers," Edgar said, shrugging, "What can you do?"

-X-

They were silent on the way back to the third floor, save Jimmy kicking the door open with more force than usual. Edgar glanced through the room, spotted a book on top of a nearby desk. He snatched it up and nearly tore the cover in half.

"Navacov," Edgar muttered, teeth clenched. "Who keeps leaving this crap in my classroom?"

Long fingers pulled on the book. "_Lolita?_" Jimmy read, uncomprehending. "Am I not getting somethin' here?"

Edgar snatched it away, hesitated for a moment, and tossed the stupid thing out the window behind his desk.

"It's a book about a pedophile," he said, slamming the window shut. "Somebody wants to make a _statement_, apparently."

_And I know somebody who was in the library when this cluster fuck started._

Lost for anything real to do, he stalked up to the front of the room and started erasing the board with more violence than in any way necessary. Maybe he'd wash the desks next, maybe he'd move the bookshelf—anything to keep moving. Keep moving or drown.

"Edgar…" Jimmy murmured, probably as quiet as he'd ever been. "Edgar, I'm sorry man. This wasn't supposed to happen…"

The older man slammed a shaking hand against the board. "What was _supposed_ to happen, Jimmy?" he demanded, turning. "What the fuck was _supposed_ to happen? I told you, I fucking warned you over and over again and did you listen? No! You never fucking listen to me!"

"But I—"

"Do you know what this could do to my reputation? Do you have _any idea_? If Angela doesn't back me up, I'm never going to have a teaching job again—and I'm not sure you _care_! You're so fucking selfish, you… you… you _heartless dick_. You had to push me, you couldn't just leave well enough alone, could you? Nothing matters to you but getting laid and causing problems!"

"It wasn't like that!"

"No? Well what was it fucking _like_, Jimmy, because _I'm not seeing it_!"

Silence. After a moment, the younger man slid into a seat at the front of the room.

"You never said no," the student sighed, looking down at his hands. "I mean, you told me you wouldn't sleep with me, but you never said _go away_ or _that's not funny_ or _I don't want you to touch me_. I never stuck with anybody for this long. This is. This is something different. I told you, didn't I?"

_Paradise Lost_ sat on his desk like an accusation

Edgar released the furious breath he'd been holding, feeling the rage slip away into weariness. Okay, so he was kind of bad at staying angry. And he was doubly bad at staying angry with Jimmy.

"You didn't do anything wrong, far as I know," Jimmy went on, oblivious, "I mean hell, we never even been on a real date. Nothing in the book against kissin'. Look man, I'm just a dumb teenager. I think with my dick. It's my fault, I know it's my fault—I should've been thinking but I just never wanted anything so _bad_ before. An' I thought you wanted me too."

A clock ticked somewhere. Edgar sank down against the wall, finally recognizing the telltale shaking in his fingers for an adrenaline high. Oh god, he was about to crash like a 747 with a drunken pilot.

"It's okay," he murmured. "It's kind of my fault too. I didn't stop you."

Jimmy practically slithered out of his chair, across the floor and down to where Edgar was. He knelt there and rested his hands on another set of slightly shaking hands.

"Look, Edgar, I don't even know how you feel about me. I don't even fucking... All I ever get is sarcasm, an', what do you… how do you… fuck, just _tell_ me I didn't get you into all this trouble for nothin'. Please. Tell me you're not just counting off the next two weeks 'til I graduate an' I'm gone forever."

Edgar looked up at him, startled, and after a moment curled their hands together. The clock ticked again.

"Don't be silly," he murmured. "It's less than two weeks now."

-X-

The next day, Edgar sat down in front of Damon at the bus stop, and tried to explain what had happened—why he'd said what he'd said, what he'd found out, what he'd meant. That he was sorry.

He tried to explain what had really happened, and tried to explain without explaining, because he didn't understand it himself.

But Damon listened.

-TBC-


	10. Relapse

"Relapse"

The drama continues! God Jimmy is an emo. It's a shame emos weren't really a thing in the nineties, or I could pull a few cheap gags out of that.

* * *

It's three weeks from graduation again.

Edgar's sitting at the edge of a circle of hooting boys sprayed with piercings, and he's sitting on top of a car with a massive crush in its fender. He has his hands pressed against the black metal on either side of his crossed legs, and he's watching over Chico's shoulder. Jimmy rolls to his feet, meets coffee-colored eyes through the screen of the smoke around Chico's head, and he smiles through a split and bleeding lip.

The boy on the ground at his feet groans, but he's clearly out for the count. Jimmy just looks at Edgar over the heads of his crew, tasting blood and victory, and asks his teacher if he wants that trophy ear after all.

He saunters over, with his split and bleeding lip—his friends part around him, trading crumpled bills or tracking him with laughing eyes—and he asks his teacher for a victory kiss.

And then it's gone, faded into ashes, and there's a pair of ruby red lips whispering down at him through the darkness, and the words are soft as velvet that's been curled up in a twice-locked attic for generations. They wrap around his arms and legs and fill his mouth with thick dryness and curl around his throat. They fill his lungs and he thrashes, and the lips smile down at him as his blood turns blue inside his veins and he can hardly summon the strength to thrash anymore.

Jimmy wakes up sweating in his dorm.

-X-

May 5th, a Friday, and Jimmy found a letter in his mailbox.

_Baby_, it said, in perfect curling script, _hope you're doing well down south. I've been thinking about you. I know you're thinking about me. Do you have a lover, baby? Do you have a sweetheart? _

_Do they know about me?_

_Maybe you should tell them._

_Kisses, C A E_

Jimmy held the note so tightly that it ripped down the middle.

-X-

It's kind of a blur after that.

-X-

Midnight, and Jimmy shoved his way through a door stories above the ground. Whoever opened the door ended up flat on the ground, but Jimmy never felt the swift fist of retribution. He was The Darkness, and nobody fucked with his crew. Not the goths, not the punks, not the sorry ass wanna-be thugs. Everyone who was anyone knew that. They played dirty.

When the Darkness pushes you down, you stay down—unless you want to find yourself on the business end of a knife.

-X-

When he was six, Jimmy beat the shit out of Jacob Davids during recess. Jacob had told anyone who'd listen (aka the entire class) that Jimmy had a crush on Cassy, or maybe it was Crystal. Or Debbie. All the fucking names ran together. Whoever it was, Jacob had taken great pride in informing the world at large of that shameful secret. Jimmy had watched Betty or Casey or Sara screw up her face and announce that he was gross and he'd never grow up to be a rock star, and she'd never kiss a boy like that. Little Jimmy Eurige watched his latest dreams burn up like the rolls of newspaper at that Cub Scout meeting he'd been kicked out of, and experienced (maybe for the first time) the all-consuming _rage_ he'd later learn to wield like a long, sharp-ended umbrella. Clumsy but dangerous.

So Jimmy beat the shit out of Jacob at recess, swinging little fists like whirlwinds and kicking, biting any bit of skin he could get a grip on. He ended up on the ground, with a teacher shrieking something way above his head, black eyed and humming with exhaustion.

He can still feel Jacob under him, sometimes, when he thinks about it too hard.

-x-

Among the few memories of that night, there's one of watching a limp body sink to the floor in a pool of jeans and skewed hair, heavy breaths shaking its frame. He remembers snatching at his zipper, he remembers vibrations running down the hallway towards them: music deteriorating into soundless chaos. He remembers stumbling back without thinking, feeling his head cleared for a dying moment by the rush of control. Torrents of power.

He does not remember who the kid was, or if it had really been good for either of them.

-x-

When Jimmy was fourteen, he stood on a cliff hanging over the city like a tightrope stretching off into space. He'd run away from home, burning for open skies with a desperate intensity, when the walls of his room suddenly became about ten times smaller. Opposites slide so easily into each other—love becomes hate with hardly a touch, and the things that once kept you safe can turn just as easily into a cage. He hadn't known that then.

All he knew back then was that the ceiling was trying to suffocate him and every creak in the hallway jolted his heart, and he needed to escape the _room_ at least because he couldn't escape his body, not easily at any rate.

So he ran. Didn't bother with shoes, hardly grabbed a jacket off the back of a chair, just yanked open the window and jumped down, started running. Kept running. Through woods and orchards and down roads, until he found himself standing on a cliff looking out over the city. The ceiling was a mass of glitter and the walls were wind, so he stopped just inches from the end of the tightrope and looked down.

He still remembers his freezing feet, his salty face, and the sated evil he'd left sleeping behind him.

-x-

Somewhere in the middle of the party, Jimmy stood on the roof of a building. He could feel chemicals searing through his blood stream, although what they were he couldn't say. It had been so long, two months, three months? He couldn't remember, not right now. He could hardly remember anything right now.

The world stretched out under him.

Four stories wasn't that high, not really. He wasn't even sure if it would kill him. But the night was black above the streetlights and the cement under his feet thudded with a beat as endless and frantic as his heart, a beat that whipped the countless bodies under the floor into a sweating frenzy. He could feel it in the thin soles of his boots like a voice.

If he listened hard enough, he could almost make out its words. He took a step forward, up onto the shoe-wide block that rimmed the building. Wind whipped the corners of his jacket, rattled chains around his hips, pushed and pulled at his feet. Night spread out below him, cars and broken glass glinting up through it.

Last words. Tired old clichés rushed through his head. He couldn't settle on one, although he had plenty to choose from, and frustration shook him. It had to be short, it had to be sweet, it had to slice to the core that he'd never reached before. He needed them now so he could get it done with.

Because she was watching him.

No matter where he went, no matter where he hid, he knew she was still watching from her Edwardian vanity in a room somewhere far away—tracing blood red nails over the antique perfume bottles, glancing at him with narrow hazel eyes. When he slept, he could feel her fingers on his back. When he drank, he could feel her watching from the shadows. Whispering in his dreams.

"Nobody loves you, kid."

The old story about nightmares said that a succubus came and rode you in the middle of the night, sucked your soul out and left you in the morning. His nightmare had blood red nails and a voice like fire.

"I own you, baby."

He'd been an idiot to think that a few measly miles would stop her. She didn't have to be here. The damage was done and all she had to do was _press_ right _there_, and everything would come falling down. That fucking bitch had her claws in him, she _always_ had.

He closed his eyes and felt the wind against his shoulders, almost couldn't take the rush of misery rolling through him like honey and venom. Misery is intoxicating, you know? It feeds on itself.

Jimmy looked down. He could feel the darkness hanging off him like trailing blankets, straining his muscles. He felt heavy. Briefly, he considered that he was playing right into society's hands, pulling the whole "tortured teen suicide" thing. That deflated him a bit.

It wasn't as if he _wanted_ to die. He'd probably end up in Hell, if he ended up anywhere, and he'd be lucky to end up in that lustful's circle Edgar was always going on about rather than somewhere deeper in. That was all barring the very plausible option that people just stayed dead, after all, and he'd cease to exist when his skull hit the pavement. Existing was good. Existing was his second favorite pastime.

But he'd die if that was what it took. She needed to get the fuck out of his head, out of his dreams—he wanted her voice burned out of his memory, her touch burned out of his skin. He wanted to drown in the misery and be done with it. He'd break her favorite toy and leave her to scream and throw things in the gilded cage his father called a home.

And he was standing five stories above the ground, wind rattling the chains around his waist, hallucinating the weight of the planet bearing down on him. It was all mixed up in his head, parallel tracks running contradictory cargo back and forth between his synapses.

Fuck, fuck, _fuck_. Why did he do drugs tonight? They never helped him think, they never helped him forget, they just made him confused as fuck and angry as hell. Why did he do that? And there was no point in asking himself because he knew the answer, too well.

Because he wasn't clean anymore.

He couldn't go back to Edgar now. No turning back. No retreat. This was between him and Carmela.

This was between him and his stepmother.

-x-

When Jimmy was eighteen and a day, in the August before, he'd tried to run away for good.

He loaded up the car with food and beer and the cases of knives he'd made in shop class—in the smith the next town over, in the basement, where ever he could get his tools set up—and snatched his father's wallet. Tore out the license and the faded picture of his mother, of the three of them when he was a baby; tore up the receipts and cards and left them in a wild scatter on the front porch.

Left a note. Two sentences.

He grabbed Carmela's keys and swung into the bright red sports car that should have been his, left his church clothes and his books and his movies where they sat in his dusty room. There was a city they'd visited, where Carmela used to go to school and his father met with business partners, and where he'd struck up a passing thing with the local generation X. He'd find his way there, somehow, get a map or ask for directions. He'd get a job doing metal work; take a part time at a retail store or something.

Never ask anyone for help ever again.

And as he reached for the ignition, he spared one look back at the house where he'd been raised: the Victorian windows where he used to watch sunrises, the tangled lawn where he used to imagine himself a conquistador, and the swing, swaying behind the brick, where he can still remember his mother pushing him and the feeling of the sky at his feet.

The engine roared to life.

-x-

He must have stood on that ledge for half an hour, looking down into oblivion. All the blacks and violets and crimsons he'd set aside rose back up to the surface, painting the world in shades of pain. He'd almost forgotten the elegant beauty of mindless fatalism.

This was how it was going to be: they'd find his body tomorrow and wrap it up, call his dad—they'd call twice, because the first time he'd be in a meeting—and far away in Washington, his father would set down the phone and stare at nothing while the speakers buzzed in his hands. There'd be regret, gallon on gallon of it deep enough to drown in, but that wasn't the main event. Oh no.

It would be the look in her eye when she realized that he wasn't coming back, that she couldn't twirl him around her finger anymore, or watch him cry like a little kid while she stood grinning at the door. Maybe it wouldn't be much of a blow, but he'd take what he could get. He'd use the one weapon left to him.

How fucking dare she bring Edgar into this. How could she fucking _dare_. That, god, that was the last straw.

It's not as if he'd be missed. Yeah, okay, Edgar would miss him but he'd get over it. Psychiatrists know how to deal with that sort of thing, right? Eventually he'd forget and it would be like Jimmy never existed, and anyways, Edgar wouldn't even sleep with him. Obviously the man didn't care as much as Jimmy liked to hope.

Fuck. After the way he'd nearly bombed Edgar's career, he'd be doing the guy a favor.

Maybe his teacher would be sad for a while, but he'd get over it. Douchebag Damon would be glad to have him gone, at least.

So he stood five stories above the ground like the shape on a ship's prow, while the wind swirled around him.

Of that moment, he remembers a blur:

He remembers his brain running loops of Carmela in the darkness of his room, smiling, glossy red lips spelling out the barbed wire truth. You are worthless. You are powerless.

_Lay still now, baby_.

He remembers her nails on his skin, gritting his teeth and powerless.

And of that night, he remembers a second train of thought running underneath the first, almost like a static fuzz below the film. Edgar sitting beside him on the tiny balcony of the apartment, running his finger around the rim of his wine glass, smiling. Soft brown eyes looking out over the street.

_Just look, Jimmy._

And he remembers yellow sunsets with a hand brushing his, with arms tucked behind his head.

He remembers standing on that ledge in the darkness as if he spent an entire lifetime there, blind eyes staring into what had been. The two scenes warred with each other, yellow and brown, red and black, one breaking into another until it was a chaos and he sank to his knees as his balance failed.

Nobody loves you—

I thought I was, once—

You're a sorry little shit—

But I was wrong—

You could die tomorrow and no one would care—

The worst thing—

Your father wouldn't care—

Is knowing what it's like to be loved—

I'm the only one who has any use for you—

—And then being alone.

-x-

When Jimmy was eighteen and a half, somebody gave a damn.

It was February and the sun was dim, vicious cheers bounded down the alley, and somebody gave a damn. He stood watching as Edgar backed away and dashed through the parking lot, face buzzing with what he'd hoped really _was_ a blush.

Somebody gave a damn if he went and fucked himself up, and somebody gave a damn if he was alright. For the first time in a long time, he actually believed that someone wanted to care about him.

And he could feel that first kiss on his lips for weeks afterward.

-x-

His last memories of the night involve crawling back down from the ledge, vibrations rattling through his knees straight into his pounding heart.

There was no point in trying to keep Edgar out of the equation. One way or another, Jimmy realized dully, the older man had managed to get wrapped up in it without ever knowing what he'd done. And he couldn't… couldn't leave Edgar standing there, alone, not even to strike that last desperate blow at his personal demons.

Because Edgar would miss him. Even after the fiasco at school and his stupidity and the broken promises, Edgar would miss him. And that's more than he ever believed he'd get.

Fuck Carmela, fuck her and her hairpin machinations. She was wrong, she was wrong about everything. He was fucking _good enough_, and he deserved to live more than she did. She was nothing but flesh and bone—not a monster, not a bogeyman, just a person. Not worth devoting his nightmares too.

Not any more.

-x-

He woke up in the morning on Edgar's couch with a blistering headache, and the sound of his heart thudding deep in his chest. Edgar handed him a glass of water and watched wordlessly from the armchair, backlit in white morning light. He never even asked.

And Jimmy didn't say anything either, because—really—Edgar didn't need that kind of ego boost.

(To Be Continued)


	11. Victory

This first scene takes place on the same day (Friday) that Jimmy's semi-suicide fiasco takes place, which was a couple days _after_ the whole scandal fiasco. There, that should cover the math for any confused readers.

Uh... should I apologize for taking so long? I apologize. I've been working on some post-apocalyptic Hanna is Not a Boy's Name. It had been more than three months since I was asked to start it, which is past my threshold of Avoiding Responsibility.

* * *

_Victory_

Edgar was hiding from a worryingly pushy student in the dark safety of his office when the call came in.

The second the phone began to buzz, Edgar snatched the damned thing up and pressed it against his ear, terrified that Susan Lizzet might hear the ring and find him cowering behind the desk. If he had to sit through one more of her desperate pleas to raise a ninety-nine percent to a hundred percent, he'd gouge his eyes out with his own grading pen.

"Hello," he murmured, keeping his voice low enough to disappear under the hum of the air conditioner. "I'm sorry, this is not really a good time for me…"

A female voice hummed through the speaker, the kind of voice that could only belong to a stunningly beautiful woman. A familiar voice. Diamond earrings and scarlet lips filled Edgar's mind.

"Oh, that's alright," she said. "I only need a moment."

Edgar glanced through the door, down the miniature hallway and into his classroom. He could feel the sniper sights ranging ever closer.

"Okay. To whom am I speaking?"

He could hear a scarlet smile through the line. "This is Mrs. Eurige. I hear you're Jimmy's councilor."

-x-

He went home. Fell asleep. Spent the day looking through a home decorating catalogue and watering his plants to death. Drove to the library and stared at a wall. Gave up and started sorting his mental files, running imaginary fingers down lines of yellow tabs, pausing at the highlighted text, writing real notes on the inside cover of the book he'd pulled off a shelf at random.

Three in the morning, maybe four, he woke up to the sound of rasping knocks at his hollow front door. Found Jimmy huddled at the threshold, pupils dilated, reeking of booze and maybe sex (he wasn't sure, it'd been a long time and it was faint anyways). Pulled the kid inside, put a sheet down on the couch and fell asleep again in the arm chair. Gave up on church the next morning.

Broke the news the next day. Couldn't get the look on Jimmy's face out of his head. Went out for ice-cream, just the two of them, and managed to pretend the storm wasn't rolling in for a few hours. Very nearly believed it.

And that was his weekend.

-x-

Monday afternoon.

They make a striking image, the three of them: an older man with salt-and-pepper hair, all business suit and dull eyes; a teenage rebel, hunched and spiked in every possible way; and the woman, in a dress the same red as her lips, appraising under sleek waves of caramel-colored hair.

Edgar didn't quite know what to do.

Mrs. Eurige told him that there were matters to discuss, that Principal Roberts had suggested this meeting, and that as Jimmy's councilor it was only right they discussed these things with him. Edgar hadn't managed to explain that they were hardly on a doctor/patient level of interactions these days. He also hadn't managed to mention the conspicuously negative impression he'd gotten of the whole family.

And he certainly hadn't mentioned any suspicions he might or might not have had about her in particular.

"Well."

Two impatient faces looked back at him. One glared at the imitation oak desk.

When he'd warned Jimmy two days ago, the morning after the call, he'd told him that things were about to get violently awkward and there was really no way to stop it, and if there was anything he ought to know about the Euriges, _now_ would be a good time to bring it up.

The kid had set his mouth in a grim line, like a soldier preparing to enter battle after an endless run of skirmishes. He had sat back in Edgar's couch, dulled at the edges because he'd spent the night on a couch after he'd shown up wasted and looking like death's morbid cousin on the apartment doorstep.

And now he looked like doomsday was fast approaching on the horizon.

_Don't bother talking to my dad,_ Jimmy had told him through gritted teeth. _He's whipped so bad he doesn't know his dick from a lipstick tube._

_Are you going to be okay?_ Edgar had asked, wanting to take his hand but mindful not to touch the boy because goddamn, look where that had gotten them before.

_Yeah. I'm fine. _The younger man turned away. _I'll be fine. I can handle this._

_You don't look fine to me,_ Edgar replied, dubious. _Tell me what's going on. Please._

_You wouldn't understand it._

_I would if you'd just explain!_

_I can't, okay! I just can't._

And Edgar had stared at him for a moment, and the clock had ticked, and then he sighed and went to fix them lunch—breakfast—brunch, like he always did when Jimmy crashed his apartment.

He'd thought that that was all he was going to get for his trouble: the same frustrating answer as always, nothing but that same nagging suspicion to guide him, but ten minutes ago as the Euriges made their way into his office, Jimmy had pulled him aside. The kid had him by the lapels, thin fingers twisted in the white fabric, and his eyes were like black spear points.

_Listen, man,_ he'd whispered,_ you have my back, right? You won't let 'em do anythin' to me, right?_

_Like what?_

_I don't know, like makin' me go to college or somethin'. Whatever crazy shit they think they're gonna pull, I don't know. You're gonna look out for me, right? Because I got even less control here than Dad an' I fucking need _backup_._

Edgar had looked at him, squinting, and then turned back to his desk. _Of course,_ he said._ I'll look out for you._

_Good._ Relief flashed across his student's face and then hardened like cement. _Then you can't be my friend while they're here. I mean nothin' to you, hear me? They find out I like you, we're both screwed. You don't know me, you don't care about me, y' get paid to ask me about my problems every week an' nothin' else. Got it?_

And he had nodded, even though he understood _nothing_, because what else could he do?

Here and now, the teacher cleared his throat and reached for Jimmy's file.

"It's… nice to finally meet you, Mr. Eurige, Mrs. Euridge."

The beautiful woman pressed bright red nails onto her husband's shoulder. "Please," she said, as if she was making a particularly generous offer, and then turned to her husband. "We used to go to high school together, you know, Mr. Vargas and I. Jack and Carmela will be fine."

No, they will _not_ be fine. You call friends by their first names. You call family by their first names. You even call your students by their first names, sometimes. But you do not, under any circumstances, call the hated parents of your almost-certainly traumatized best friend by their first names.

"Mr. and Mrs. Eurige is by the book."

Carmela narrowed her eyes for barely a second, as if she had lost a wager or misjudged a step in some great chess game. Edgar smiled back.

"Mr. Vargas," Jack Eurige cut in, all business. "We need to discuss our son's future. Principal Roberts indicated to us that you're rather close to Jimmy."

"Closer than Roberts is, I suppose."

Mr. Eurige frowned. "Jimmy refuses to sign on with a college, even though I've been saving up for this since he was born. I was hoping you could help us talk some sense into him. He's hardly got a week left of high school, but he's stubborn."

"Military school would have fixed that right up," Carmela murmured, glancing sideways at the teen on her right. "They would have knocked the wearisome free will right out of him."

"Darling, you know I don't believe in the military."

Edgar reached for a pen. He had a feeling he wasn't going to believe all this in the morning, and he better take a couple notes while he was still certain of his perception of reality. A quick glance at Jimmy told him absolutely nothing, except that the boy seemed to be set against making any kind of eye contact with any of them.

"Mr. Eurige, you do realize that your son isn't a minor anymore, right? Technically, it's his choice whether he wants to go to college, or anything else for that matter."

The man in the charcoal suit scowled. "We can disown him, if it comes to that."

"Fine," Jimmy spat, breaking his stiff silence, "just fucking _do it_ already. Make up your mind so I can get on with my life!"

Edgar held up a hand. "Hold on. Jimmy, no cursing. Mr. Eurige, have you tried looking at this from your son's perspective?"

Jack Eurige gave him a look that could probably be best translated as _what is this faggotry_? if the son was anything like the father. Edgar did his best to pretend he hadn't noticed.

"Jimmy tells me he's interested in a craft… a more physical trade, if you will. He does quite well in shop class."

The older man laughed. "I've seen his transcript, Mr. Vargas. This semester he's failing every class except yours."

"He's failing shop because he told the teacher to _suck his dick,_ if memory serves, on orientation day. And every day since, more or less. The academy has a strict citizenship policy."

Jack Eurige turned towards his son. "To your _teacher_?"

The teen scowled. "The douchebag thinks you can temper steel in a kiln, _Dad_. He ain't much of a teacher."

Edgar intervened before things could escalate—he felt like the little man at the monitor inside his head might be getting ready to toss the keyboard down and take five, and that would _not_ help him keep up in negotiations.

"Okay, okay. Mr. Eurige, clearly you can see that your son is interested in the subject. In any case, allow me to point out a couple things. First of all, Jimmy is in the last week of his senior year, and there's no time to change much of anything. He's also, as you pointed out, failing every class but mine this nine weeks. And semester, since the Academy counts D's as failing grades…"

All eyes turned towards the youngest Eurige.

"…basically, he'd have a hard time getting into any real college even if he applied early, let alone this late in the spring. Be realistic, sir."

"I know a guy," the father replied, stubborn. "I can make it happen."

Edgar shook his head. "I can tell you right now that you'll be wasting your money. If Jimmy doesn't want to be there, believe me, he's not going to be there. You can't force somebody to learn. Trust me. I'm a teacher."

"Well what do you suggest I _do_, then?"

Finally. The councilor glanced at his erstwhile patient, feeling the beginning of a smile twitching on his lips for the first time. "Three step plan, sir. You interested?"

Jack Eurige blinked. "Of course I'm interested."

"Alright. Then step one: leave Jimmy here. He knows this town, by now, and it's far enough away to allow some independence. Step two: cut him off. No money, no support—he goes to jail, he had better bail himself out, you see? Step three, you put aside that college money you've been saving all these years. The universities will wait, as long as you need them to. Plenty of kids take a year off between high school and college. The advantage to this plan," Edgar added, raising a finger, "is that if Jimmy really is as useless as you no doubt believe, he'll be begging to enroll by this time next year. If not, he starts a career and ends up responsible for his own actions. It's a win either way."

And even before the blustering and the negotiating and the rationalizing, Edgar could tell that he'd won by the peculiar light in Mr. Eurige's eyes.

He risked a quiet victory grin as he reached for a form.

-x-

In retrospect, it was all too easy. Mr. Eurige was a father, at the core of it, and he wanted the best for his son just like any father—this was what Edgar had expected. In every story Jimmy told, there seemed to lurk a reminder that they had once been… if not close, then at least comfortable. Years and events had buried some of that, but the core remained. Jack Eurige was not a _bad_ man, not really. Just wrong.

And yet it had all been far too easy.

Whatever had made Jimmy's lips set like an old soldier's, Edgar hadn't gotten a glimpse of it yet. There had been too much fear, too much resignation, too much strain in the hands that had twisted the white fabric of his shirt.

Like the silent place laid out for death to dine at, there was one character who seemed to be lurking just outside of the conversation's reach. In every story, there she was.

They had met once before

-x-

Carmela pulled Edgar aside after the conference.

Actually, that's not quite right. What actually happened was that she slid back down the hall as her family was leaving, sinuous as a snake, and ducked inside Edgar's office while his back was turned. She leant over his shoulder, tapped a burgundy nail against the file in his hand. Every muscle in his body went rigid.

"Mrs. Eurige," he said, looking straight ahead. "Did you… forget something?"

Her breath ghosted over his neck, raising goosebumps—in those red heels, the two of them were the same size exactly.

"Of course not," she replied, voice low and cool. Her elegant fingers brushed his.

Jaw clenched, Edgar pulled away and headed to his desk. "Well then, never mind me. I'm sure your husband is waiting for you."

"Oh, don't trouble yourself about that. He knows how to be patient. It's so _good_ to see you again, Mr. Vargas…"

"The pleasure is all mine," he replied, without looking back_. At least you're sober this time—then again, maybe that's worse._

"Yes," the beautiful woman murmured. "I had no idea that you were our Jimmy's councilor, it really is a small world."

"Sure," Edgar mumbled. "Too small. What is it you want?"

"Lighten up, Mr. Vargas, _please_. Can't we have a simple chat? I'm sure you have all sorts of interesting things to tell me about my stepson—girls? _Boys_? Drama, trouble with the law… Does he ever talk about me?"

Her voice murmured like an instrument.

"He says you stole his car," the teacher shot back, desperate to break the unnerving poetry in her tone with something prosaic. "He says he hates you. Regularly."

Carmela smiled, a slight, mysterious quirk of ruby lips. The hem of her dress swished as she stepped closer to the desk.

"It's so nice to be remembered," she murmured, and then louder: "It's surprising to find the two of you… practically strangers after so long. Has he been avoiding the issues all this time?"

Edgar bristled. Yes. "No. You know how teenagers are; they're just reluctant to trust adults."

He sat down, imagining that the thin wood of his desk might act as some kind of supernatural barrier against the unsettling female in the draping red dress. He stuffed the files in a drawer and pulled another set out to busy his hands.

"Maybe with good reason," Carmela mused, leaning across the desk. "Trust is a luxury that most people really can't afford. Never trust anyone, unless you have a loaded gun tucked away for them just in case. You're sure to end up fucked and bleeding over a table, otherwise. I taught him that."

Edgar couldn't think of a reply. "Uh" came to mind.

"Oh, I think it's an important lesson for any loving parent to teach their children. Naturally, I'm a generous woman. He didn't seem to appreciate the consideration, though. Boys. What can you do with them?"

"…You…"

Edgar looked through the window into his classroom, straining his eyes for a glimpse of spiky black hair or a charcoal suit. God, anything to get this woman away from him. He wanted to study her so badly, he wanted to sit her down in a chair and pick apart every inch of her velvet and tetanus brain—and he wanted the floor to crack under her feet and send her plummeting to the ground in a rain of plaster and support beams. He wanted to reel back and _slap_ her so hard her jaw would disconnect from her skull, and the devil take her double X chromosomes.

She couldn't just _talk_ about Jimmy like that.

"I'm surprised he isn't fonder of you," Carmela observed, bending closer. "People often end up in love with their psychologists, I hear. I know Jimmy's fondness for men… I wonder why nothing's come of it?"

The teacher stiffened. "Are you accusing me of something, Mrs. Eurige?"

The brunet woman smiled again, that same cruel quirk of rounded lips. Edgar noticed for the first time the perfect curve of breasts all but displayed in front of him. Her smile grew.

"I received a call from the principal here," she murmured, as if it was an answer, "a few days ago. He intimated to me a few very curious notions. Naturally, I've kept them to myself—men are so delicate after all, so prone to rash action. I can't trust my husband with a thing, really."

She knew. She fucking _knew_—Roberts broke code and told a parent, and he was caught in too delicate a balance to call the… the _rat-bastard _out on it. How much did he tell her?

Edgar narrowed his eyes. "What do you _want_, Carmela?"

"Oh, I have a name now, do I?" she asked, and Edgar realized that it didn't matter _how_ much she'd been told—she could put the pieces together herself. Maybe Roberts only mentioned that there had been rumors. Maybe he'd spread out details like a winning hand of cards. Either way, she slid the ace into her sleeve and left the table, smiling.

"Naturally, I wanted to see the man that my stepson is so very fond of," she purred, "and now, you see, I want very much to know why he's gone to such lengths to pretend it isn't so."

"Maybe because it _isn't_," Edgar hissed.

"Maybe," Carmela sighed, with a paper-thin look of disappointment. She nudged one graceful leg up onto the desk and seated herself there. "Maybe not. Maybe he's tried—maybe Jimmy is in love with a stone."

She reached out crimson fingers and brushed the unmoving man's cheek.

"You bear more than a passing resemblance to one… Mr. Vargas. My husband will wait. If my stepson isn't to your taste—perhaps I am?"

Edgar glared at her. "Leave my office. Now."

"Not interested?" she mused, slithering closer. "Imagine what I can do, for a moment. Imagine what it would feel like to—"

"Leave. _Now._"

A sort of slick satisfaction lit up the woman's eyes. "So you _are_ a stone after all. I think, even if he did hate me, a normal man would be twitching by now."

"I'm not a stone, _Carrie_. I just don't like you."

"So cold. My my. There's not an ounce of sin in you, is there? Poor Jimmy. I can't imagine what it must be like to kiss a statue—how far do you think he would go for you? What's your best guess? Turn himself in? Betray his friends? Or, would he die for you? Oh, we spoke in the parking lot, you know. I think he might die for me—would he live for you?"

Edgar did not allow himself to think about anything she said, didn't dare. He'd drown. He'd lose his breath somewhere underneath the waves of sickness and the pressure would crush him. And so he replied with nothing.

"Fine," she said, after a moment. "It's nothing to me. I'll leave. I'll walk right out this door, and I'll never show my face at this school again—it'll be like we never spoke."

She slid off the desk and walked to the door, reaching out for her purse as she went. The red drapes of her dress rolled in the florescent light.

"But," she paused, a hand on the knob, "whatever happens… You'd be well off to remember that I had him first."

And then she was gone

-x-

Jimmy came in later, after indeterminable ticks of a clock had faded into nothing and the room had swallowed the world whole—and found Edgar collapsed in his chair. The younger man started to talk, but the sound fell on deaf ears. It was like everything had been drained out of the room, real and imagined.

After a moment, Edgar felt fingers on the inside of his wrist—he shuddered.

"Well, you're alive," Jimmy observed, dubious. "I guess she didn't poison you."

She could have done much worse than that, if she'd had a mind to.

"Christ," the older man whispered, "I think she's the devil."

Jimmy leaned over him, thick-rimmed eyes narrow. "That bitch said something, didn't she? She got you. She got you good."

"No, not exactly… Something you should know about me, Jimmy," Edgar murmured, "is that I'm very good at not thinking about things. I should be alright. I'm a little shaken, that's all."

Somewhere outside of the building, Carmela was slipping into the seat of her husband's Mercedes with the cool elegance of a queen, tilting watchful eyes back towards the third floor window. Edgar could feel her. If this was what Jimmy lived with for the last four years—the lurking feeling of nakedness, the cold magnetism—then Edgar could understand why the kid seemed to keep one eye on the door, even asleep.

"I'm not going to ask you about her again," he decided, looking up at his friend. "Someday, maybe you'll want to tell me."

He was pretty sure he knew, at this point. No use in tearing off scabs.

"How d'you know her?" Jimmy asked, straddling Edgar's legs. There was a weird comfort in that, not just the heavy-soft contact of bodies but the echo of normalcy. It was unnerving and reassuring to know that the lurking heat of sexuality could exist at the same time as cold despair. As a professional, at least, that was interesting.

"Would you believe we really did go to school together? We all called her Carrie back then. It's… been a while. I never knew her that well. There was a class reunion earlier this year… we spoke."

Edgar looked past the peaks of desperately spiked hair, through the window overlooking a parking lot where Carmela Eurige was speeding away. A moment of prescience swept over him.

"She was born in this town—and just like the rest of us, she'll die here one day, too."

It had a hold on people; deep down, everyone knew that they'd never really escape the city. In moments like these, moments of cooling horror, Edgar dared to admit that it was more than just a superstition.

"If I killed someone," Jimmy muttered, "she'd be the first on my list."

"Don't talk like that," Edgar ordered, sitting up straighter. "I won't have it; people will answer for what they've done, one way or another—it's not up to you. Don't let her get under your skin like that. We just won you a year of freedom, so forget about her. She lost."

Jimmy raised a brow. "We won?"

Edgar considered that it was long after hours and the school was empty, and for an intellectual guy he wasn't very smart anyways so there was no use in pretending otherwise. He wrapped his arms around the younger man's skinny torso. The world softened slightly.

"Yes, we won. All you have to do is prove that you can handle it—I know you can, and you will, and then nothing Carmela says will be able to persuade your father otherwise. Trust me. Take it from a man who deals with parents all the time: your dad's a jerk, but he does care about you. And that's not too bad."

The spine under his hands sank a little as Jimmy wrapped his own arms around Edgar's neck. They sat like that for a while, silent, and there seemed to be a question buzzing in the student's throat, but he never said anything and Edgar was content to wait.

Finally, with a shift of weight that might have also been a shift in thought, Jimmy did ask a question.

"You think people really answer for what they've done?"

Edgar closed his eyes."Of course. There's a Heaven for me, and a Hell for her—and that's all I really need to know."

He had _that_ conviction, at least.

TBC


	12. Resurection

_Resurection_

A bonus chapter, because I feel like it's time for a break.

* * *

The year that Edgar met Jimmy, Easter was in April.

Easter was a particular mixed bag for Edgar.

On the one hand, it struck him as a beautiful holiday: rebirth, hope, a promise that the ultimate human archetype would continue as long as mankind had need of it—that the night was always darkest before the dawn. It was hardship and mercy, a duality that stood for everything he'd ever needed.

On the other hand, he was quite frankly a bachelor orphan and it sort of stung when he remembered that there was nobody to take Easter egg hunting, and no one to sit with (yet again) during the service. The yearly repetitiveness would one day drive him to beat his brains out against a rack of chocolate bunnies.

Every. Goddamn. Holiday.

But he persevered, in spite of all that, and that April he slid his white sports jacket out of the cubby his apartment management optimistically referred to as a closet and pulled his craptastic walkman out of the box in his bedroom just like he had every year before.

The _Jesus Christ Superstar_ sound track was tradition—time honored, written-in-stone-since-the-seventies tradition. Sirs Webber and Rice might not have had your traditional interpretations, but the sheer humanism made it one of his favorites. Besides, Edgar was a bit more liberal even than the average member of his church; there was some possibility in his mind that the musical might have been on to something. Every year since he moved to the apartment (okay, yes, before that too) he sat on the back of his car the night before Easter and sang along as long as he could before the neighbors opened a window to yell at him.

He wasn't tone deaf or anything, but he was definitely no Billy Joel.

That night, his downstairs neighbors were missing in action so he'd gotten all the way to Mary Magdalene's song. The walkman sat in the hollow of his crossed legs, buzzing slightly.

"_I don't know how to love him—what to do, how to move him_…"

The car shifted, slightly, and he slid his headphones off one ear, turned around as fast as he could—it was tempting fate, of course, exhibiting evidence of actually enjoying life where other people could hear you, not to mention singing off key, but he'd never actually had a neighbor come down stairs to yell at him before. In one ear, the music kept going—

_I seem like someone else…_

"Hello?" he called out, looking back into the darkness. "Um… am I… too loud?"

Edgar's heart nearly stopped when a spiky black head popped up on the other side of the car roof. It grinned.

"Fifty dollars says that you never got past prop manager in a musical."

Edgar sighed and hit pause, half relieved not to be facing down the psycho hamburger guy from down the hall and half straight-out irritated. Jimmy was Never Use the Doorbell syndrome incarnated at its worst.

"For your information," he replied, settling on _displeased_, "I was the prop manager _by choice_."

Jimmy giggled (funny, he'd been doing less of that, lately) and clambered over the roof to sit beside his teacher. Knees bent over the spoiler and boots dangled in the air.

"Drama kid, huh? I knew you were _some_ kinda nerd."

"I was never a proper drama kid," Edgar admitted, pulling the headphones all the way off. "I spent too much time in the library, you know. And I never tried out for a part, which I can only guess made me look like I thought I was too cool for doing the shipoopi in powder blue overalls."

"Some resentment there?"

"No, of course not. Well, maybe on their part. But the overalls _were_ hideous."

"So gay, Edgar. You are so incredibly gay sometimes."

For a few minutes, the older man refused to respond with anything more than a determined sulk. Straight guys could hate overalls, couldn't they? What the hell did an opinion on clothes really have to do with sexual preference? _Seriously._

"What're you doin' out here, anyways?" Jimmy asked, at last. "I thought you had a strict nine o'clock bed time."

Edgar shifted. "Um. I don't want to talk about this."

"Promise I won't make any more gay jokes." Jimmy paused. "For another hour, at least."

"Hm. Deal." With that, the teacher lifted his CD player carefully, trying not to shake the poor thing to death. He'd gotten it used. "See this? This is the sound track of _Jesus Christ Superstar_."

The younger man looked doubtful.

"It's not like that. It's a rock opera. Like an opera with electric guitars? …It's from the seventies."

"_Oh_."

"I do this every year," Edgar went on, setting the walkman down. "I started when I was eighteen—well, it made more sense back then, I spent most of my time in a parking lot—"

"Why?"

He frowned, reluctant to get into all of that. "Sometimes it's just as hard to be close to something as far away from it. The parking lot was my solution. Anyways, I've been doing this ever since. I've got a thing for habit, I guess."

Jimmy stared at him for a minute—the two of them were probably going to be stuck in this push and pull of untold stories for the rest of their lives—and finally looked down at the headphones. He tugged on one end.

"Lemme listen. I like electric guitars as much as the next guy."

Here goes the Incredibly Dumb Headphone Division Maneuver, yet again. Edgar cracked a smile.

"This song is one of the slow ones—try to be patient, okay?"

Jimmy nodded impatiently (great sign, that), and they leaned in against each other, squeezing together as tightly as they could manage. That weird giddiness rushed through Edgar at the point of contact between their cheeks—Christ, when was that going to wear off? It was kind of embarrassing.

He hit play.

Mary Magdalene's voice pooled in the speakers, and Jimmy relaxed against his side. Moments passed, stanzas ran by, and Edgar found himself watching the hand that had settled over his own more than listening.

_—Don't you think it's rather funny… I should be in this position—I'm the one who's always been… so calm, so cool, no lover's fool, running every show—_

The hand tensed.

-_he scares me so…_

Jimmy hit the pause button.

"I don't like this song," he announced, twitching like he wasn't sure if he should pop his head out of the makeshift vice. "I'm going t the next one."

It was kind of weird to hear a voice right next to you and not turn to look at the source. Someday, they were going to come up with a kind of headphone you could separate between two people.

"Alright," Edgar answered, selecting the necessary button. "It wasn't important to the plot anyways."

The next track started, and Edgar spoke over the first strains of _Blood Money_.

"You know there's still an hour left in this thing. If you're going to listen with me, I'm not driving you back to the dorms at eleven o'clock midnight. You'll have to stay over."

"Oh," Jimmy replied, "the horror."

"No, what I mean is… tomorrow morning I'm going to church, and you're coming with me."

"Oh. Fuck."

* * *

The next morning—Edgar opted for the ten thirty ceremony, out of pity for his guest—the two of them were loaded up in Edgar's Volvo, having successfully fought to the death over whether Jimmy could wear eyeliner and/or jeans to church and subsequently raided Edgar's meager cubby for another set of suitably dressy clothes (they were almost literally the same size, and when had _that_ happened?).

Edgar grabbed a parking spot and wrestled with the meter for a bit while Jimmy tried to reshape his sleep-flattened hair in the car window. Complete failure, much to Edgar's relief. In all brutal honesty, he was jittering nervous about how well Jimmy would be received.

They settled on balcony seats, once inside, and Edgar left the teen watching their seats while he went back downstairs to talk with the preacher. There was a service project this summer that the congregation was getting ready for, and the other deacons were all insisting that Edgar take up the forefront—most likely just as much because he was an orphan/bachelor with June and July off as anything else.

They settled on a solution. Edgar sighed. The pastel throng around him had thinned, over the course of the conversation, and he took that as a sign that the service was about to start, sooner rather than later, and hit the stairs again. He was beginning to regret the balcony decision.

"—bunnies!"

It took about two seconds to realize that was Jimmy's voice, and then he practically _fell_ up the second flight of stairs.

"I don't get you people," the teen was going on, surrounded by a circle of bemused church-members. "Rabbits are a fertility symbol, don't you people hate sex?"

Edgar groaned. How did he not see this coming?

"And, like, pagan too! Rabbits are pagan! _Easter_ is _pagan_! It's named after a pagan goddess an' shi—stuff. You're all _pagans_!"

"Oh, for the love of _God_, Jimmy," Edgar shouted, breaking through the circle, "give it a rest!"

"Fuc—screw you, Edgar! You're the one who told me this stuff!"

The older man took his guest by the arm and shot his neighbors an apologetic look—they knew him, and they knew he was just the book-learning type—mouthing something to the point of "I'll explain it." He pulled Jimmy back to their seats and shoved a pamphlet and a pencil into his hands.

"Here, if the service gets deadly dull you can draw on this. And yes, before you ask, I _do_ think you're a five year-old."

The younger man looked displeased.

"Now, about that rant." Edgar flipped over another pamphlet, and grabbed the second tiny pencil holstered beside their pew's hymnal. "Look, I told you those things because they're interesting historical background, not so you could come busting in here like Darwin come again."

He drew a little rabbit cartoon at the edge of his paper.

"The rabbit _was_ a pagan symbol. But see, if a group of people adopts a symbol and gives it a new meaning, it's their symbol too. Easter is the oldest archetype I can think of—the prince dies for his people, the willing human sacrifice. The people in this church—" Edgar motioned around them, "—know instinctively that Easter isn't about bunnies or candy or subverting pagan symbols. It's a hope thing, you see? Now, the congregation here understands that distinction better than my last church, probably, but either way you can't go calling out people's symbolism."

"If it's really not about any of that, then they shouldn't _care_."

Edgar shook his head. "People _kill_ each other for symbols, Jimmy. Have you seen what happens when people burn flags? It's not pretty. They're mostly harmless, but every group has its witch-finder sergeant, particularly in this city. Besides which, you're being a douche. Just leave these people alone."

"Fine." The younger man scowled and sat back. "I spoil you, _Mr. Vargas_. I really do."

An organ started up at the front of the church, and cut off Edgar's usual snarky-but-indulgent reply. As one organism, the congregation rose to its collective feet.

"The Lord is in his holy temple; let all the Earth keep silence before him."

* * *

At the end of the hour, Edgar finally allowed his student to escape towards the bathroom. There was something about attending service that made everything seem alright, in the world and inside Edgar's head. A sort of soft balance fell over the universe.

"So, who's the kid?"

He turned, a little, to face the woman now sitting beside him. Liz was the closest thing to a friend he had in the congregation—they sat together usually, said hi when they passed each other. It was nice. She was nice. And nice people were somewhat thin on the ground.

"My student," Edgar replied. He felt the edge of his lips quirk upward. "Embarrasses me constantly. I guess that's fair, though, since I do the same thing around his friends."

Liz smiled back. "I guess he doesn't go to church much?"

"He says he used to, but my guess is he slept through it all anyways. I don't normally drag him along like this, but I was hoping… you know, this is my favorite holiday. I wanted to share it with him."

"That's nice of you."

He looked away, wrestling with the words that seemed necessary here. They felt heavy on his tongue.

"He's my… he's my best friend," Edgar admitted, at last. "I know that's strange because he's almost ten years younger than me and kind of an idiot sometimes, but he really is my best friend."

Liz patted his hand, a little bit awkward and a little bit sweet. "I'm glad you brought him. You always look so lonely—you know the church thinks the world of you, but sometimes you just seem so… lost. No one's ever sure what to say to you."

"Story of my life."

The teacher looked back towards the stairs and made to stand. "I better go down now—knowing Jimmy, he's probably trying to convert Reverend Sheppard to Satanism—not that he's actually a Satanist, I mean, he just does that… um, yeah. I better go. See you next Sunday."

And with that he left Liz laughing quietly behind her hand in the front row of the balcony.

As a matter of fact, when Edgar got down the stairs he found his companion grilling one of the altar boys about a party the night before last that they had both allegedly attended. The altar boy looked positively terrified, and his mother looked as suspicious as a bird Edgar had known in childhood, who came back to the nest to find her eggs suspiciously heavy and stone-like. Without pausing, the older man swooped in and took Jimmy by the wrist, dragging him away to the exit before any more damage could be done.

"No, man, you were _there_—look, I just want to know what happened to Elvira, alright? She was s'posed to give me—Hey, hey, let go!"

Edgar snorted, walking faster now. "Yeah, _that's_ likely. You've done your damage, we better get out of here."

They left through the front doors and headed down the hill to the parking lot, and he finally let go when they reached the crumbling edges of the asphalt. After a pause, Edgar turned around to examine his erstwhile guest.

"You look so normal," he sighed, observing the flat hair and the spotless slacks, and the hands that were for once free of black varnish. "At least you didn't steal anything."

The younger man snapped, eyes mock wide. "_That's_ what I was forgettin'."

A little disappointment seeped through Edgar's veins. He wasn't sure what he'd been expecting—something different, he supposed. A little dampened, he reached for the keys.

"Hey," Jimmy said, leaning closer, "you look down. Let's go get some Easter candy, that'll make you feel better. If we get the rabbits, you can eat their heads first so they don't see you coming."

Edgar smiled a little, despite himself. "Okay, sure. I haven't had real candy in months."

"Satan-tastic!"

Car unlocked, they slid into the front seats and commenced with shoving anything in their way out of their way. Yet another loose bail form had found its way into Jimmy's seat, clearly the product of some undeniable ironic magnetism. They buckled in.

"Y'know," the teen started, as the engine cranked up, "that sermon thing wasn't too bad… I mean, whole _second chances_ thing. Everybody needs a second chance, right?" There was a pause. "... a' course, the shtick with the call an' response is creepy, but it's not the worst thing religion's ever thrown at me, anyways. This one time, when I was like ten or something, the preacher-dude starts having a seizure in the middle of—"

A wave of lip-tugging happiness swept through the man in the driver's seat, light and perfect, and he rolled down the windows on a sudden urge to bring as much of the world inside as possible.

"—an' the whole church decides it's the Word of God an' shave their heads! Seriously!"

So Edgar drove them to the Wall-to-Wall Mart, and hardly noticed that Jimmy had started humming Mary Magdalene's song somewhere along the way.

-o-


	13. Graduation

Graduation

* * *

Mid-afternoon, and the first clouds were just rolling over the horizon, white and thick like cream on the tops of the fancy coffees that Jimmy picked up for his teacher every morning, religiously, like some kind of modern sacrifice to the only higher power he'd ever courted favor with.

Jimmy was sitting in the back of the Academy auditorium, watching the sky through a gap in the red curtained windows some ten feet above his head. He was early. He was always early, unless he had something to prove. It gave him time to consider his options, whatever they were. Up on the stage, a custodian was brushing the dust of nine months from one end of the frame to the other and Jimmy watched him too, feeling the moments slip past.

He was pretty sure every other school in the country did these cermonies at night, but the Academy couldn't stand the thought of their poor little non-theological-winged-figure children out on the dangerous night time streets, at least not when their parents were in town. Some people had younger siblings. So afternoon it was, and they'd even sent a couple teachers around to drag the kids out of their dorms, the few that were still holed up in their rooms.

Sitting there, alone, he'd been feeling pretty snazzy. For a kid who did almost no work and spent most of his time resolutely sticking a middle finger to the establishment, he was doing pretty fucking well. Graduating on time and everything. Oh, if the school had a face, he'd love to see it then.

(He had a notion lately that he'd spent a little too much time imagining that the school was a person and that it could be violently facefucked.)

He was pretty sure nothing could screw this up for him, not even Joe Manuel sitting behind him, making stage-whispered comments about cocksuckers in combat boots to some ditsy brunette. Oh, he'd know all _about_ cocksuckers, wouldn't he?

On the front stage, some old teacher kicked a battered projector and the light flickered on, gracing the in-trickling audience with blurry photos of the current graduating class. Jimmy regarded them for a moment. The yearbook fags got some grudging props for accuracy. Joe Manuel, Lacrosse captain. Clarissa Williams, flouncing around in the (admittedly uninteresting) cheerleader uniform. Damon Jones, scholarship winner. That last one had Jimmy gritting his teeth, because standing with one arm around the snotty brainiac was Edgar Vargas, smiling a smile that could light up the darkest cavern in the world. Was Jimmy jealous? Fuck yes, he was jealous.

Oh, look, there was Jimmy, in shop class. Not a bad shot, all things considered.

"Where's your _boyfriend_?"

Jimmy spun in his seat, nearly gave himself whiplash too, and found the queen bitch herself standing over him.

"Oh," he answered, sinking back, "the pansy broke up with me on account of how I fucked _your_ boyfriend up the ass. Ask him about it sometime. It was great."

The redheaded girl wrinkled her nose. "I can't believe they're letting you graduate."

"Feelin's mutual, babe. I hope high school prepared you for a career of shakin' your tits for cash." He looked pointedly at her cheerleading uniform. "But I wouldn't worry about that, looks like you got it under control."

Clarissa snapped two delicate fingers, and her eternal posse of drones buzzed reluctantly back to their seats. The two of them regarded each other like wild cats circling over a disputed carcass.

"Why are you such a dick, Jimmy?"

The young man cocked a brow, which was actually a moment of cool he'd pat himself on the back for later. "I could ask you the same thing."

Clarissa shook her head. "No. Let's get something straight. You were the new kid, some freaky eyeliner-wearing new kid who never did his homework. All you had to do was shut up and sit down, and you would have done fine. We treat our freaks better than most schools, you know. You might have even made friends. Instead you come stomping in here with your language and your _disrespect_ and you call me a slut before I even talk to you. I was going to give you an orientation, _dipshit_. I don't want to say this in front of my girls, but the truth is, we could have been alright, if you'd just shut up and sat down like everyone else."

Jimmy squinted at her. "I don't know what you're gettin' at, Williams."

The cheerleader glanced back at her posse, satisfied herself that they were otherwise preoccupied, and sat down beside him. The knee-length panels of her blue and white skirt fluttered down after her.

"I want to know why you're such a _dick_, Euridge. You're the one who called _me_ out in front of the whole senior class on the first _fucking_ day of school. And now all this…weirdness with the psychology teacher? Look, I got a scholarship to Corvallis and I'm never seeing your sorry bitchy ass again. I just wanna know what makes you tick, before I go, so why don't we talk like civilized people for once."

Jimmy squinted at her. It sounded like… words, of some kind. Probably words.

"Are you seriously tryin' to have some kinda heart-to-heart with me?"

Clarissa made a frustrated noise. "You're either the most emotionally retarded _douche_ I've ever met, or you honestly think my soul purpose in life is to piss you off. Do you _want_ me to be a bitch?"

...Emotionally retarded?

"All girls are bitches," Jimmy shrugged. "The second x chromosome is made of evil concentrate."

"Yeah?" the girl shot back. "Well I guess you must have some _sad_ saggy tits under there because you're the biggest bitch I ever _met_."

Jimmy lept to his feet. "You wanna go outside? I'm not afraid to hit a chick."

"Oh, lucky thing, _me_ _neither_!"

The boy felt a hand close over his shoulder, familiar shape and warmth. He craned his neck backwards, and met unhappy brown eyes.

"This had better not be what it sounds like," Edgar announced, quietly, shifting his attention to Clarissa for a brief moment. "There are parents coming in, and if you make a scene now, of all times, God help me…"

"What," the younger man replied, sheer habit moving his lips, "you'll be _disappointed_?"

Edgar glared at him. "Yeah, actually. I will. Now sit down, both of you, and try to act like you're not both too idiotic to live. I'm too stressed to deal with you. Clarissa, you've already been reprimanded once about catfights. Jimmy—" he paused, "…just sit _down_."

Somewhat speechless, Jimmy fell back into his seat. Jesus Christ, was that _frostbite_ he was feeling? That was the coldest thing he'd heard from Edgar since before Christmas break.

"Well damn," his redheaded arch nemesis muttered, "who spit in _his_ soda?"

-x-

Jimmy's parents weren't in the audience, obviously. Well, his mother was kind of _immobile_ at the moment so that was _really_ a given, but his dad and Carmella weren't hanging around either. They didn't feel like staying in town, most likely. All he knew for sure was that relief hit him like a fist in the gut when nobody familiar poked their heads out of the crowd.

The ceremony got rolling.

Mostly he zoned, and the little Asian girl behind him had to give his shoulder a solid push towards the stage when they finally called his name, but he made it up combat boots and all, and Roberts the Rat Bastard handed him the most unfriendly diploma in the history of ever. The breif handshake resembled a titanic battle. Why had he wanted Edgar out of the job so badly anyways? Budget cuts, maybe?

…or maybe he was just a huge motherfucking douche.

A never ending stream of blahblahblahblahblah buzzed off the stage, and parents were crying and students were crying and Jimmy surreptitiously checked the floor for a drain at one point, after a hulking slab of a man started blubbering uncontrollably into his wife's hairpiece. And the blahblahblah went on and on, about values (I will not shoplift on weekends) and honor (I will always warn people before I hit them) and honesty (I want to bang Mr. Vargas, I want to bang Mr. Vargas) and… oh, he lost track.

He did spy Edgar hiding in the folds of the stage curtain, at one point, watching the audience with all the cheery confidence of a week old corpse. Uh, wow.

A roar of applause shook the student out of his contemplation, and when he'd successfully managed to contain an impulse to throw his arms up and deny all charges, he looked back into the audience.

Oh. Standing ovation.

Cool.

He slid out of his seat and disappeared down the aisle as an auditorium full of parents rushed forward to blubber and tug on their kids, the whole room mutating into a vast amorphous blob of nostalgia and blue robes. After finding the outside exits blocked, the student—former student—gave up and pushed his way back through the crowd, like a swimmer pushing through a pool full of jello, in search of the hallway exit. Halfway out (or in, he supposed), he spied a familiar pair of glasses again, conversing uncomfortably with an older woman.

The opportunity was considered. He wasn't sure what he'd done earlier, but maybe he ought to go see if things were alright, just in case it was something serious.

"—Saw that?"

Edgar's voice drifted back to him over the heads of an Indian family and a whining five-year-old, growing clearer as Jimmy approached. It sounded... _relevant_.

"—my patient— nothing like— really, lately it's just one class—" too quiet to hear, "Oh? No, I suppose I'll see him at reunions…"

The woman's softer voice reached Jimmy, finally: "Mrs. Fisher mentioned she's attending a graduation party, you know. You could easily—"

"I won't have time," Edgar cut in, curling in on himself a little bit, "I'm going on a mission this summer. I'll be gone for a… a while."

_What_? Why hadn't he heard about this_?_

"Besides, seeking out former students seems a little clingy, doesn't it?"

Jimmy frowned and stepped backwards, quickly getting out of Edgar's line of sight. _What?_

"Not at all," the woman replied, and Jimmy slunk a little closer again, despite himself. "It's perfectly common, actually. It's sad to lose so many people over and over, isn't it?"

Edgar frowned, although from this angle Jimmy couldn't see his face—only the curve of his neck and the lean of his shoulders.

"Well yes, that's true. But what's a friendship with a teenager worth, anyways? It's not like they can understand anything about the world, not yet at any rate. I don't want to spend that much effort chasing down some kid who's only interested in sex and candy."

He… _what? _

"And anyways, everyone knows teacher-student friendships don't last past the diploma—it'd be absurd to expect otherwise. That's just how it's always gone. If you're smart you just drop it, you understand what I mean, Mrs. Lee?"

And that was when Jimmy snapped. He shoved his way forward, tapped Edgar on the shoulder, and conjured up the biggest, coldest smile he could manage.

"Hey Mr. Vargas," he said, "just wanted to thank you for helpin' me out _so_ much this year. It's good to know you have people you can _trust_ watching your back, huh? Have a nice _life_."

And then he left, because everything was fucked up now and he'd gotten it fucking wrong enough already, and he was just _tired_ and pissed_ off._

* * *

An hour later, on a hill at the back of the academy, Jimmy watched as a silver curtain of rain dropped over the valley. It rushed towards him over square white houses and treetops gone silvery too—and he realized that for the first time in his life, there was no one there but him. His parents were gone, one dead and one pulled back in truce, no longer of any importance. Carmella was gone, the psychotic bitch, and she had no power here. He didn't owe anybody anything; no school, no friends, no bullshit higher power.

No Edgar.

God, that man needed a wake-up _ass kicking_.

He looked down at the empty space on his fingers, where a class ring might have sat if he was anybody else. At that moment, an absurd regret washed over him, as cold and implacable as the rain that was inching ever farther up his hill. Today could be the end, the last hour of a dying era, and he had nothing to show for it.

He wondered what he'd tell the guys—somehow it seemed wrong to have a fake boyfriend you'd never see again, more wrong than a fake boyfriend who nearly lost his job for kissing you a couple times, no strings attached. Maybe he'd say Edgar died—it was common enough in their town, to drop off the face of the earth one day and never be seen again. He'd known a couple kids who ended up like that.

Rain poured over him.

Ditched and dissed, and Edgar thought he was a stunted excuse for a heartless meatpuppet. Great. You think you know a guy.

He was pretty sure his eyeliner was running—cheap liquid brand, he grabbed it out of some floozy's purse a week before—but somehow he couldn't be fucked to fix it. There was some vindication in it, some messy drama that had always appealed to him, even back when he was a little bastard writing god-awful poetry in the dry safety of his father's shed.

It was a little consolation.

He was alone, that was the short and short of it—just like he'd always wanted to be, don't owe nothing to nobody, free of the system and the weight of idiots' expectations. Alone, and hollow. Nine months of building this, like some twisted infant growing from a little speck to a breathing, incomprehensible thing, and all that for nothing. Fucking emotional abortion.

The last school bell rings, and the world closes up behind you.

There's a way that things are supposed to be, a natural order that he'd been fucking with since day one—since nine months ago when he met Edgar Vargas' eye as the assistant principal dragged him down the hall, and the world went Technicolor for the flicker of a second. And he'd been flirting with futility for month on fleeting month, unknowingly at first—forgivable—and then knowingly, with all the blatant disregard for the rules he could muster. Some crime.

Edgar lived in the sunlight world, blue skies and white picket fences, and there was a way that things had to be in America Town USA. Teachers do not date students. Older men do not date younger men. _Men_ do not date men. Edgar's world had rules, rules that bent but never broke, and no matter how many epiphanies Jimmy had, no matter how many realizations, he couldn't realize for the both of them. _Even_ _if_ Edgar hadn't meant everything he'd said, the point remained.

Jimmy got ditched, that was the short and short of it.

There was righteous indignant fury, that feeling he'd always reveled in, but somehow he still felt like shit. He'd hoped for too much. This was why he'd sworn off hope, years ago. He'd just thought… he'd just thought it would be different. That Edgar would be different. Months of ups and downs, despairs and quick-beating elations, and this was how it ended.

It doesn't rain in Edgar-land.

He would have been happy… he would have been happy for even the _simplest_ promise.

Distant thunder rumbled, soft and violet in the distance, and Jimmy knew that he didn't really have it in him to give up. He'd changed too much, tried too hard, couldn't go back now. Ditched or not, he still loved that useless motherfucker. Kind of wanted to punch his lights out, now, but still.

Somewhere in the falling evening, greens fading to grays with the premature darkness, and Jimmy felt the warmth of flesh press tentatively over his hand.

"Hey?"

Jimmy turned his head and found himself face to face with a thoroughly soaked and hesitant Edgar. _Oh, _now_ you want to come and talk. Secret keeping dickface_.

The older man lifted an eyebrow, and a stream pooled in the shallow wrinkle above it. "I figured you were still on campus—I thought maybe you went to the gym, but you weren't there so… I came this way. I, uh, I have to admit I don't understand what you said to me…"

Jimmy refused to reply. Let Mr. Psychologist explain himself for once. He wanted the older man to hurt a little, for a change.

" I… missed you after the ceremony," Edgar said, taking a careful seat on the puddling grass. "I thought maybe you were upset your parents—your father didn't show, but, considering how we last saw him…"

Jimmy made a half-hearted attempt at a snort. "Nah. It was time to go, right? Ready to get out of that shithole. You know. Tired of seein' that stupid building—ain't brought me nothin' but trouble."

"That's not it and we both know it. Tell me what's going on?"

Jimmy closed his eyes and tilted his head up into the downpour, simultaneously praying that Edgar would pry everything open and that he'd just go the fuck away. He decided against punching him, though, after all. _Promise me something, goddamnit. Don't you owe me that much?_

"Jimmy?"

The boy didn't move.

"Jimmy?"

"I like rain," he muttered, unmoving. "It doesn't rain as much in Washington. Blue skies and snow. Just the kinda thing every little kid's supposed to want."

"Jimmy, you're avoiding me."

"Maybe I just like rain, huh? Why's it always gotta be some _secret_ I'm keepin' from you?"

_Can't you make even one?_

Jimmy could hear his teacher—former teacher, now—slump into himself with a swish of saturated fabric. _Just one fucking promise. Even a little one_.

"Okay. If you say it's nothing then it's nothing," Edgar sighed. "I'm sorry. In any case, I had something I wanted to give you—uh, please don't throw it away because it's kind of… expensive."

Jimmy turned.

"And," the older man went on, voice a little clumsy, "if you don't want it, can you at least pretend like you do? Because I feel sort of stupid now, and I'm not sure this was a good idea, and I know you told me you didn't want one but I just thought you sort of needed one you know? _I_ had one and…"

Edgar slid a hand into his waterlogged pocket, fishing out a little white box.

"Here," he said, placing it delicately on the peak of Jimmy's tucked knees. "I know you're probably irritated that I never listen to you, but it just seemed like you needed a… memento of some kind. And like I said, I had one and my dad had one and—"

With chilled fingers, the younger man pried open the lid and blinked, watching an instant deluge gather in the silver twists of a class ring. Some sort of fake red gemstone glittered in the middle.

"—and it's not girly, I mean, I know how you are and I tried really hard to make sure I didn't get anything too feminine and, you know, silver matches everything and—"

Jimmy closed the box and listened to Edgar's nervous chatter, growing more and more so as the teen continued to say nothing.

"—and, uh, anyways, aside from that thing I also have a couple mugs in the car, and I figured, um, you should pick one since you're probably going to be coming over a lot this summer and you broke most of my other cups when you were trying to catch that lizard so I thought maybe if you had one of your own you'd be less likely to break it—"

"Wait," Jimmy cut in, holding up a hand. "You… you bought me a _coffee_ _mug_?"

Dripping and pale and more nervous than Jimmy had even seen him, Edgar nodded once. The matted edges of his short hair clung to his forehead.

"I… I was in an antique shop, and—"

"You bought me a motherfuckin' _coffee_ mug?"

"Well," Edgar replied, a little defensive now, "I'd already bought you a ring and it didn't seem like much compared to _that_."

Jimmy stared at him for a minute. What the fuck… the fuck was… it didn't…

Huh?

"You… are coming back, right?" Edgar pushed, looking for the first time just as uncertain as Jimmy felt. "Back to my apartment? Because I don't think they allow former students to hang around the campus and corrupt freshmen, so if you want to see me I think you're going to have to come over to my place or nothing at all."

The younger man glanced down at the box resting on his knees, at the puddles forming around him, and finally at the walking bag of irony sitting in the grass and mud beside him, and all this in the middle of a summer storm. When he opened his mouth, he could taste the rain.

"What kind of mug is it?" he asked.

A dam of relief broke across Edgar's face, and as he proceeded to spill every mind-numbing detail of his antiquing escapades, Jimmy slipped the ring out of its box and onto his finger.

A little promise.

That was enough.

-x-

Back at Edgar's apartment, hours later, with a Frankenstein mug in hand, Jimmy asked the question he'd been contemplating for hours.

"Why did you say that stuff to that woman?"

Edgar looked up from his checkbook, a mass of scribbles in blue ink. "Who—Oh. At graduation?"

"Yeah."

The older man's face fell. "You heard that."

"Uh. _Yeah_."

The clock above the couch ticked, and Edgar had the grace to look almost half as guilty as Jimmy had been offended. Whatever the hell Edgar had been playing at, the younger man had not been intended to hear about it.

"I swear I didn't mean any of it." The teacher said at last. He pursed his lips like an old lady and turned back to his checkbook. "She was asking about you."

"An' you thought calling me an emotional _retard_ was just a _swell_ answer."

"Angela warned me about her, when she came in," Edgar answered, cryptically. "Nearly drove me crazy, sitting there."

Jimmy let out an exasperated breath. Always with the cryptic."Who _was_ she?"

"She's… a friend of Roberts'," Edgar replied, looking up. "A friend in high places, as it were."

"Uhuh. An' does she go to every Podunk academy graduation?"

"No. Just this one."

"…which means?"

The look he got was ice cold, an almost frightening mirror of the corpse-serious Edgar he'd caught hidden in the folds of the theater.

"It means she _knew_, Jimmy," the teacher said, fingers tightening around the cracked siding of his pen. "It means she knew about everything, and she wasn't there on accident."


	14. Normalcy

Normalcy

(Tralala, the next chapter should be a bit sooner than usual because this one is short, tralalala pay no attention to the woman behind the parenthesis)

* * *

First weekend of real summer. This was when Edgar remembered why he signed on with a school in the first place.

It was seven in the morning, there were three messages on his cell, one from Jimmy and two from the administration, and the sun was blinding through the gauze over his window. Just had to go for the east facing window, didn't he? That was as much masochism as bad luck, honestly.

Edgar reached for a shirt. He was going on a walk.

-x-

Or not.

Even simple plans get a little bit mixed up when an intruder appears.

Here, that intruder was his all time best and all time worst (now)former student, Bringer of Chaos, Destroyer of Sanity, One Voted Most Likely to End Up in Jail, and One Generally Agreed Upon by the Populace Off Record Most Likely to Ruin His Teacher's Career (although the accuracy of that title would not be determined for another couple months). Currently, Jimmy was sitting underneath the spindly tree planted so haphazardly outside Edgar's apartment building, with his head propped up on his fists and his elbows propped up on his ironically ripped jeans. Just so. Edgar leaned against the entry way, at the foot of the stairs he shared with the morbidly obese woman across the hall and the lesbian pimp on the opposite side of his wall, and the other door that never seemed to open or close although you could hear music sometimes at three o'clock in the morning.

You know, he used to think rent control was a good idea.

At the moment he was just watching Jimmy. It's interesting to observe people observing things. For the last minute, since Edgar had walked down, Jimmy's eyes had been shining just like the cobalt blue paneling of the motorcycle parked in front of him. He'd been sitting there for god only knew how long, and had Edgar only discovered him because he'd been sitting directly between the apartment and an afternoon walk.

"You like bikes?" Edgar asked, idly, comfortable under the shade of the awning.

Jimmy didn't look away, like he knew Edgar was there the whole time. "Fuck yeah," he replied. "Friend of my dad's taught me how to drive one, haven't had a chance since they shipped me off to the academy."

"Are you good at it?"

"Haven't killed myself yet," the younger man replied, a little mocking and a little proud. "I want one so fuckin' bad, but after that shit you pulled with my dad I can't sell my damn car."

Edgar twisted the face of his watch, watching solitary clouds drift by miles above his head. "You're better off with a car," he pointed out. "A car you can sleep in, if worst comes to worst. And I don't mean to be rude, but if you can't find someone stupid enough to hire you quickly, you may need that."

Jimmy made a disbelieving noise, and still didn't look up. The motorcycle rested in front of him like some graceful, lean animal.

"Who's is it?" the teen demanded, after a moment. "It's got to belong to somebody in the building—it was here the last couple times I came through the front, but it was dark an' shit an' I didn't think about it."

"Are you going to steal it?" Edgar asked, an amused smile tugging his words sideways.

"Nah man, you don't steal shit like _that_. You admire it from a couple feet away. I just wanna know who it belongs to. It's gotta be somebody bad-ass, I dunno, like a racer or a drummer, or some sexy-ass motherfucker from Italy, they're all mafia over there—"

"It's mine," Edgar said.

"—like some—" Jimmy skidded to a stop in the middle of his sentence and turned so fast he practically fell over. "No way," he croaked, "guys who ride are, like—"

"Not me?" the older man finished, twisting his watch again. Pain in the neck. He should have known better than to put this one on, God only knew why he hadn't pawned it off by now.

"But," Jimmy was saying, "you already got a car!"

Edgar shrugged. "Did you ever consider there might be a reason why I'm so poor?"

The _does not compute_ litany of "butbutbut" made Edgar bite down a grin. "That'll teach you to stereotype," he noted, and pulled his watch off. "I'm going back up stairs to put this away, don't break anything."

Jimmy's boots clanged up the stairs a few seconds after Edgar.

"Where'd you get it?" the younger man demanded, taking the steps two at a time. "How long have you had it? What make is it? Why don't you ever ride it?"

"My father bought it for me when I was eighteen," the older man replied, ducking back into his apartment, "he said I didn't get out often enough. And I _do _ride it, just not to school. It's a hobby, not a transportation."

_Couldn't bring myself to get rid of it_. Rather like the watch, actually, which he carefully slid into the drawer of his night stand. When Edgar came back out of his room, now watch-less, he found Jimmy staring at the spare key hanging beside the door.

"This one for the motorcycle?"

"Uhuh—Hey, drop it! Jimmy, you put that down right now!"

Displaying his usual spectacular listening skills, the teen instead pocketed the key, grabbed the older man's hand and yanked him out the door so they practically fell down the stairs to the edge of the sidewalk. Before Edgar could regain his balance, Jimmy was throwing his leg over the black leather seat.

"C'mon, let's _go_," the younger man called, foot tapping impatiently underneath the sun-warmed engine.

Edgar spluttered. "But—that's _mine_—Jimmy, you don't have a license!"

"So? Think of it like a learner's permit, man. Come _on—_look, you can be the navigator."

"This is not really the kind of bike you want to sit two people on," the older man said, eyeing the conspicuously small bump of leather that served as a makeshift backseat. "And, anyways, that is _mine_ and I say _no!"_

The thief ducked down behind the handle bars and peered up over them. "It'll be great, man, I promise. …Please?"

Edgar blinked. "I… was not aware that word was in your vocabulary."

Jimmy popped up. "Does that mean yes?"

"Um… I _suppose_, I mean… well, it's not like you're a complete novice. As long as you promise not to—whoa!"

The older man found himself slung forward across the bump of a back seat, and the revving engine under him was enough to send him scrambling for a proper seat—he did _not _want to fall off of this thing while Jimmy was piloting, God knows if he'd really drive away with Edgar hanging off the side, the crazy little—

Jimmy shot off down the street, maneuvering them around the edge of one of the apartment complex speed bumps—a couple inches from death, oh god they were _doomed_. Edgar swore and threw his arms around the younger man's waist, ducking down out of the slipstream. _Mother of_-

He didn't have to see it to know Jimmy was grinning like a madman, and he had a feeling it was just as much the terror-induced physical contact as the speed. That little... that little _dick_.

Jesus _Christ_, of all the times to be a pushover.

-x-

Minutes and meters passed, and eventually the death grip on Jimmy's waist loosened slightly. He seemed to be obeying traffic laws well enough, at least. Wind whipped by, insistent like water parting around the body of a swimmer. The rumble and the sweep brought Edgar back to a familiar place little by little, a refuge from the world for ten years now.

Jimmy yelled something back at him, and Edgar pointed towards a left turn, yelled something in reply. They went racing through streets, out through the derelict neighborhoods at the edge of town and into the country side, passing factories and warehouses until there was nothing but asphalt and fields.

After a while, he closed his eyes.

This was the route he'd taken since he came back from college and settled into his apartment, three or so years before. This was the same route he'd taken almost ten years ago, leaving the hospital parking lot in a whirlwind of desperate escapism—out through the heart of the city, out past his home, out through the slums that were a little less slum-like back then, a little more put-together. Honestly, they sort of creeped him out these days, and he was glad when they passed out through them and over the city limits.

Wind rushed by, and it was the sort of timeless sensation that lent itself to romantic notions. Sunshine and cool shadow, and warmth in the press of chest against shoulders.

Edgar sighed, and caught the scent of something intriguing—pressed closer against the back of Jimmy's neck. Hormones and hair gel, and something almost sweet. The younger man turned his head as if to say "What the heck was that?" and Edgar ducked down out of his range of vision. Woops. Smelling people: not normal behavior.

Apparently creepiness is contagious?

Somewhere down the highway, where the interstate hopped over the local road, Edgar directed his friend/hijacker into the parking lot of a fast-food restaurant. The pavement was cracked and the motel beside it was slowly crumbling to dust, but the hamburgers inside were the best in the tri-state area—as a trucker had once told him, in between courses of grease and meat.

The motorcycle's engine shut off between two semi trucks.

"So… why a burger joint?"

Edgar pulled back from the ripped army jacket he'd been clinging to. "Tradition."

"Uh… Then c'mon. You're buyin'."

-X-

"See," Jimmy was saying, gesturing pointedly with a french-fry, "that's the thing! I get you, but I don't get you. First it's all, 'oh, look I'm straight' an' then it's all 'sure, yeah, let's make out', an' now I can't tell if you want me to beat it for good or move in with you."

"How about neither?"

"I'm tryin' to make a _point_, Edgar. I'm drownin' in your goddamn hidden depths."

Their table by the window fairly glowed with sunlight, and Edgar glanced down at his meal, taken aback.

"You're exaggerating, Jimmy."

"Am not."

"You're just in a sour mood because they made you pack up your dorm room today."

"I am _not_."

"Where are you moving by the way?"

"Okay, who's tryin' to change the subject _now_?"

"You know there's an open apartment a couple buildings down from mine, the last tenant got arrested about a week ago."

"I don't—arrested?"

Edgar reached for the salt in the middle of their table. He had a bit of a weakness for salt. On everything.

"His roommate turned up in the morgue with a fork to the cerebellum. It's a bit sad, actually, the man always seemed nice enough to me. But you never know, it might have been one of the… what are they calling them? Johnny murders? The fork is odd enough. Maybe they'll acquit him."

"So… is there a free apartment or not?"

"Contract breaks when the cops show up."

"Oh." Jimmy popped a fry between his teeth. "Don't think I'd last too long."

The older man raised a brow. "I never saw any cops show up at your dorm."

"That, m' dear Edgar," the teen replied, "is 'cause I didn't wanna give the academy an excuse to ship me back home. You've seen my family. Not goin' back there."

Oil sizzled somewhere behind them. That was a terrifying sound for someone who grew up reading historical fiction, regardless of current local.

"Why do I suddenly have the feeling I've created a monster?"

"Frankenstein's monster. A very sexy Frankenstein's monster."

Edgar shook his head and ignored the nonsense. There were times when you had to. Lunch went on like that, and more than once the teacher had to shoosh his former student before the entirety of the restaurant was treated to a full record of Jimmy's less than savory exploits—some deeply illegal. Of course it had been a long time since Edgar had contemplated actually _reporting_ anything that the teen did (whether this made him a bad person was now up for debate), but a flicker of the old uncertainty did flare up now and again.

Not seriously, of course. The notion of actually, really punishing Jimmy was as alien as the notion of simply walking up to a mountain and starting to climb it.

"Edgar, hey, _Edgar_."

The older man looked up.

"Sorry, I got distracted. You were saying?"

"I was _sayin'_, I got two hundred dollars to my name an' you need to help me get an apartment. Look, I don't know shit about that stuff—why don't you just lead me around an' tell me how stupid the wallpaper is an' it costs way too much an' blahblahblah, an' you can pick a decent one for me."

"Me? Why me?"

Jimmy leaned forward and gave him a "really?" sort of look. It did not bode well.

"Y' got a TV, Edgar my man. You know what channel it's always tuned to? _Always?_"

"I, ah…"

"The home improvement network. You spend more time watchin' TLC than you do _drinking."_

"I do not drink _that_ much—"

"Edgar, lemme clarify: you spend more time watching that shit than I do breakin' the law, an' yeah I _have_ found your stash of magazines. _Southern Living_ magazines. An' if you try to pretend it ain't so, I'm stranding you here an' leavin' with your motorcycle, _capice_?"

"Er. Yes. Got it, you horrible little person."

"Great." The younger man reached across the table and smacked his former teacher's arm. "So, you an' me, we're goin' house-shoppin'."

"What, like right now?"

"Yeah right now!"

"But you don't really expect to go… house shopping on a motorcycle!"

"Course I do. You're just worried 'cause people are gonna see you riding bitch."

Edgar's face hit the table. "Why do I let you get away with absolutely everything?"

"Cause… y'love me?"

The older man blinked. The teen grabbed his hand for the third time that morning and dragged him away, leaving trays and wrappers behind on the table by the window—and it was an innocuous joke, nothing at all hardly, but the word 'love' made him nervous anyways, as if context didn't exist.

On top of that, the accusation seemed… weirdly familiar. A bit like déjà vu.

-x-

And life went on: absurdly, perfectly, and inexplicably normal, with the added bonus of a city full of linoleum tiling waiting to be ripped down to size.

Normalcy, abnormal or not, was a blessing.


	15. Prom

_Prom_

We're going backwards now! And you wondered about prom. And... other things. Here's your belated puzzle piece? I meant to have this done chapters ago... Woops. The chonology has never been straight forward anyways.

* * *

April

There are certain sorts of people who do proms, and people who just _don't_.

Clarissa Williams (may she writhe in Hell), for example, does prom.

Jimmy Euridge, for example, does not.

Because prom is stupid, and it just gets tenser at a private school. It's a bunch of upperclassmen dicks rushing around like headless chicken trying to find a corsage in the _exact_ shade of blue that will prevent the world from collapsing in a smoking apocalyptic fury, singles desperately chasing after the best prospect they can find only to settle for something just shy of social suicide, and weeks of frantic planning allowed to dissolve into a drunken stupor of retarded dancing and shitfaced afterparties.

Never mind that it all closely resembled Jimmy's average weekend. The problem point was all the _planning_.

A weeks or so before the date, sometime in April, the teen found himself sitting in front of Clarissa Williams (may she writhe in Hell), listening to what basically amounted to a grocery list of flowers and limo services and potential dates, now that she and Manuel were back in the trough stage of their heartbeat-monitor relationship. There was some flake of justice in the universe, though, because it was American History and when Jimmy's head hit the desktop with a loud _thump_, nobody particularly noticed it among the other fifteen identical thumps of learning-induced boredom.

How many different kinds of roses _were _there, anyways?

"—and I told her that she better _not_. I mean, six hundred dollars? Mine's only three hundred, and I'd absolutely _die_ if something happened to it."

Jimmy's multi-pierced ear flicked with interest.

"Prom is, like, sacred. You mess up your dress, you ruin the whole thing, you know? This is the big moment, this is the… the climax of high school or something. If she messes this up for herself she's wasted four years."

The boy felt the first tug of a smirk on his lips.

Well. With an invitation like that, he'd be crazy to turn it down.

-X-

A little more eavesdropping research informed him that he was at a distinct disadvantage from the other male seniors—besides being dateless, he was motherless too. Apparently, mothers and girlfriends took care of all the details concerning prom. And he was _not_, absolutely _not ever ever_, going to call up his stepmother and chat with her about boutonnieres. With his luck, she'd probably show up on prom night and—

So anyways, he was kind of at a loss.

He had to look the part, he decided, that was all: a tux and a date would probably cover him. A male date would draw way too much attention, and the female population of this school hated him uniformly… which wasn't to say he hadn't caught a one or two of both behind the main building in the last year. But still. Hate-fucks in an alley were not even in the same _neighborhood_ as a prom date.

He skipped on Friday—calculated risk, like always. He'd allotted himself four skip days before the administration would get involved, and he liked to arrange them for maximum impact, but he guessed he could spare one now if he made up for it Monday with a scandal of some kind. He went to the mall some time after eleven and skulked outside of dress shops, peering through windows and generally feeling like the Dark Gods of Goth and Associated Subcultures ™ were going to strike him down for blasphemy at any moment. Second thoughts ensued.

Eventually the owner of the shop threatened to call security if he didn't lay off on the loitering, and somehow Jimmy then managed to gather up the guts to slither inside.

Step one commenced.

-x-

Step two took off in the food court where he encountered Azreal or Alyssa or whatever her name was, and offered her a part in the plan. The enthusiasm it garnered _almost_ made him like her. Almost. The guys showed up not long after—_perfect_; somebody down there must have been looking out for him—and he proceeded to get them a couple hooked in with the plan.

There was Chinese food involved.

-x-

Friday afternoon, five hours before prom, and Jimmy was sitting on Edgar's desk, trying out a pose he'd seen in a porn magazine. His teacher turned back from the blackboard, gave him a deadpan look, and told him to get his ass off the furniture.

"Aw, come _on_ man, you sure you're not a robot? You have to think _something_ is sexy."

Edgar snorted. "Like I'd ever tell you if I did."

"Shakespeare. Shakespeare is sexy. How 'bout I quote Iago at you?"

Arms crossed. "No. If I catch so much as a _thou_ out of you, I'll wring thy scrawny little neck, is that clear?"

"Sheesh, okay."

A bird fluttered outside of the classroom window, a little brown thing with a puffy chest. Jimmy noticed because Edgar noticed, and honestly, Edgar didn't notice much. A moment of contemplation followed.

"Bondage," the younger man said, finally. "It's bondage, isn't it?"

His teacher just looked at him.

"Leather? whips? No?"

"I am not discussing this with my student."

"You _always_ pull the student card. C'mon man, you know I'm not a normal student. Give me somethin' here, seriously. This is totally rigged."

"Maybe the problem with this is that _I'm_ _not_ _gay_, for the four hundred second time this month."

"…Nah."

They looked at each other for a minute.

Jimmy propped his head up on one hand. "Are you _sure_ it's not bondage?"

"Okay, that's it, session _over_."

-X-

One thing you can say about private schools—the jocks don't chase you nearly as hard. Sometimes they don't even really want to hurt you. Jimmy had been to a lot of schools—Catholic schools, public schools, Episcopal Schools… this one really weird little charter school full of nothing but art students and punks… but the Academy probably topped the list of places he'd prefer to be, if he had to be somewhere. Not only was it days drive from home, but nearly every time he'd gotten bruised up by one of the jocks, it had been something bordering on a fair fight.

Maybe it was because they were all either filthy rich or total motherfucking braniacs, but they seemed to have had their meanness cogs replaced with pettiness wheels.

So that was why Jimmy was hidden in the bushes of the hotel garden on prom night, trying not to choke on the smell of dirt and crushed green things or turn the knees of his suit a very sexy shade of fugitive brown. Gardens. Like the world really needs more nature.

The sound of somewhat tipsy, heavy footfalls echoed through the courtyard. In a couple seconds, they'd give up and wander back to their dates, and that would be the end of that. Spoiled, fat bloodhounds too tired to chase the rabbit any deeper into the woods. Smart guys too; if they'd come out into the dark drunk like that, Jimmy would have handed out a couple broken noses and a few temporary erectile dysfunctions complements of Jimmy's right knee, and that probably wouldn't have sat well with their dates.

Still might have gotten the piss beat out of him anyways, but let no one say he would ever go down easy.

That didn't happen, though, and that was the important part. In retrospect, he probably shouldn't have offered to let the football team captain suck his dick (you know, since his girlfriend had already had a shot at it). Still, who was he to turn down such an easy target?

Another minute to make sure the coast was clear, and then Jimmy climbed up out of the bushes and headed back towards the ballroom—he'd left his date at the fondue fountain, discussing the Recommended Goth Reading List with a bewildered English teacher. They were on _Carrie_ and moving into _The Sandman_ when he'd ducked under the table and made a break for it. He probably had a good ten minutes before she hit something by Lovecraft and ran out of steam.

He took his time going back in.

The thump of music found him first, and he grinned a little. That was familiar. Of course it was no Nine Inch Heels, but if you stayed away from the speakers, the effect was the same. Sort of.

He stuck to the shadows for a while, just in case, steeled himself and slipped back in beside his date, figuring he could absorb some of the Reading List Material through osmosis. You had to keep up if you wanted to merge with the Goths every so often. He had time to kill anyways; the homecoming court was still sequestered away somewhere getting buzzed. His eyes drifted over the milling throng of the ballroom.

Hey.

The crowd seemed to part around a lone figure, white dress shirt and white dress slacks, a flash of glasses and a downturned mouth. Movement swirled around him like a river around a stone. Jimmy set down his cup. Azreal or Alyssa or whatever her name was faded to a buzz of peripheral vision, and then nothing. He took a step into the crowd, and was off.

Edgar hadn't mentioned that he was going to be here.

The teen ducked through the milling dull eyed organism that covered the ballroom floor, tugging a couple tubetops down as he passed—the shrieks charted his path. Never could resist a strapless dress.

Edgar looked up, probably noticed the shrieks, and had just enough time to widen his eyes before Jimmy was wrapped around him like an emotionally insecure octopus. An emotionally insecure octopus who had just ditched his fake girlfriend at the punchbowl. Eh.

"Jimmy," the older man greeted through gritted teeth. "Kindly take your hand out of my hair?"

His student responded by pressing his arms down a little harder on Edgar's shoulders.

"You stubborn little…" Edgar's eyes jerked nervously, scanning the crowd for someone who might be looking their way. "You are crossing _lines_, you hear me? You're going to get me _fired,_ would you just _get_ _off_?"

The teacher pried his attacker loose and shot him a nasty glare.

"Whaaat?" Jimmy whined, "Subtlety is my middle name!"

"Yes, and your first name is Crashbangboom," Edgar muttered, tugging the new wrinkles out of his white dress shirt. "You didn't tell me you were coming to prom. Nice waistcoat, by the way, very… uh, red."

"Thanks man. A… Al… my date said it was real _Interview With the Vampire_, which is, y'know, good if you're hopin' to score with a goth later."

The older man shoved his hands into his pockets and looked sideways as if there was something very fascinating happening on the dance floor. "You brought a date? I didn't know you got a… girlfriend."

"I didn't." Jimmy paused, and felt a grin slide across his face. "Worried?"

"Maybe for her sake," Edgar shot back, making a sort of nose-upturned face that Jimmy had long ago learned to associate with jealous girlfriends in sitcoms. Not that he, you know, _watched_ sitcoms.

A girl in a ruffled skirt huge enough to rival a Disney princess stepped on Jimmy's foot, and he paused to beam death threats into her cerebral cortex. Then he turned back to Edgar, who seemed to have been saying something.

"Yeah yeah. That's all nice. Anyway, you should come dance with me, Edgar man. I got time to kill an' you look bored as shit."

"I w_hat?_ Have you been _drinking_?_"_

"Uh. I had a beer at Al…izir…aphel's house, an' there's the punch, I guess."

"Well that must have been one _hell_ of a punchbowl if you think _I'm_ going to dance with _you, _Jimmy Euridge."

"What? Jesus man. Give me three good reasons why not."

Edgar crossed his arms, looking like some disapproving statue of a modern saint. "One. I don't dance. Two. You're here with a girl who thinks she's your date. Three. _Have you noticed we're in the middle of a godforsaken public ballroom?"_

"Nobody's looking."

"Your date is over _there!_ Go dance with her and leave me out of it!"

"Aw, she's just a decoy. Lighten up."

"You don't _score_ with decoys, Jimmy. Go away, I'm working."

The younger man squinted at him, a little taken aback. "Wow, dude, you're harsh tonight. She's just a chick, it's no big deal."

"No big— Jimmy, you can't just ditch your date and dance with someone else, especially someone you spent the last year hitting on, and _especially_ not if you're planning on _sleeping with said date!_ Were you raised by _Philistines_?"

Jimmy just looked at him.

"Er. Right then." Edgar deflated a little bit. "Look, all I'm saying is that you can't treat girls like that."

Jimmy shrugged. "If t makes you feel better, she knows the date is fake."

The two of them stood there for a minute. The song in the speakers across the room started to wind down, and Jimmy caught a glimpse of whathersface as the crowd started to split up at the edges. She seemed to have latched onto one of the art nerds from Jimmy's homeroom with overwhelming gusto.

"But…" Edgar murmured, "then why would she…"

"Look, don't worry about her, alright? If she starts cryin' you can _both_ slap me. I wanna dance with _you_ right now, Mr. Vargas, an' it's in your best interest as my councilor to give me what I want."

"Good lord, when was the last time I did anything councilory for you?"

The younger man pursed his lips. Fair point, but he was definitely not giving up. In his mind, it was all a little like quicksand—the harder Edgar struggled, the deeper in he ended up landing himself. And Jimmy was not one to take no for an answer, even if it meant fighting a little dirty.

The student crossed his arms. "Well then," he said, lifting one brow. "How about this. You're my best friend, an' I want you to do this for me."

Edgar looked horrified. "You did not just pull the best friends card."

"I think I _did_."

"But, we're in public! You can't _possibly_ expect me to—"

"You know how the punchbowl's spiked? Trust me, nobody's payin' attention to us."

"But I can't dance!"

Jimmy put a hand to his ear. "Hear that? That's the sound of a slow song starting. Somebody Up There must really like you. Or maybe somebody Down There really likes _me._"

The older man took a deep breath, sighed, and looked down. Skinny, coffee-colored wrists thrust forward, awaiting a pair of metaphorical handcuffs.

"Alright. Take me away."

Jimmy grinned, grabbed the outstretched wrists, and pulled his companion away into a dark, drunken corner of the dance floor. Reluctantly, Edgar slid his arms over the younger man's shoulders so they were nose to nose, like a mirror image of some minutes before—and Edgar leaned in so that his mouth pressed against the edge of Jimmy's ear.

"You're a terrible person," he muttered.

"And you're a coward," Jimmy whispered back, too quiet to hear. The melody washed it away.

And they stayed interlocked like that until the last bar of the song, when a whistle sliced through the room and Jimmy looked up, flashed a grin and ducked through the crowd into the sweating heart of the room.

And consequently, he didn't notice the sophomore girl a few steps behind his teacher, watching them with hawkish, sober eyes.

The escape went off well. Jimmy ended up crawling under one girl's dress—nice view, somebodyhad planned _ahead_—and got himself a kick in the ass that was well worth the trouble. The alcove door on the other side of the ballroom cracked open, and he was through it before the crowd behind him had time to look around in puzzlement. He caught the door an inch from closing. Hot summer night air settled around him as he turned.

"She's here?"

His partner in crime for the night grinned, leant back against a stalling limo. "Just came in," Chico said. "Now, where you want me to smuggle this thing?"

"This way."

They slipped back inside, through the one-way locked door and into the corner of the ballroom where the portable strobe lights didn't reach. Strobe lights. At a prom. He could only imagine what Edgar thought of that.

"Where's your date?" Chico whispered, as they slunk along the wall.

"Left her at the punchbowl. It had a good view of the door."

"Man, I can't figure out why she wants to bang you so bad. It ain't cause you're pretty, _believe_ me."

"It's 'cause I got _class,_ dickwad."

"Yeah, sure."

Jimmy left his partner in crime in position, tending to a couple last-minute mechanical technicalities. Official Student Government Pain in the Bureaucracy Min was sliding this way, and out of anyone in the entire student body tonight, she might actually notice that Chico wasn't exactly private school material. Or wearing a suit.

He wedged himself into her path.

"Min, babe," the boy started, leaning in way closer than most people would ever want him. "Don't tell me she stood you up."

"The fuck are you talking about, Euridge?" the girl demanded, leaning back slightly. "And get out of my face."

"What, is it some kinda secret? Or are you just embarrassed?"

"Is _what_ a secret?"

"Clarissa an' you. What, she dump your ass that quick? Never trust a cheerleader."

Min stared at him. "What are you _on_? Clarissa never asked me out. I don't know what planet you've been living on, but she's _straight_. She's _prom_ _queen_."

"Ooh, spoilers."

"Seriously, where did you _get_ that idea?"

Jimmy shrugged. "Don't matter now, huh? Looks like I get to call her majesty a chicken _and_ a bitch, tonight. Y' can't trust populars, Min, you just can't."

Min kept staring, but you could tell from the set of her eyes that she was in; it was just a matter of lip service now. Min backed away. "Uh. I have to go."

Jimmy spared himself a pat on the back—agent of chaos, oh yeah—and turned to find Chico waiting for him.

"Who's that?"

Jimmy tossed an arm around his friend's shoulder and grinned. "Resident lesbian. Though, I really shouldn't know that. It's blackmailin' material. Now, let's find my date an' get a good seat."

On the other side of the room, whatsherface was waiting for him. He was feeling generous, what with all the impending disaster, so he caught her by the waist and told her she had one hell of a whistle, and got a weird uncomfortable feeling in his gut when he looked up to find Edgar watching him from across the floor.

Huh.

-X-

This is how the next few minutes went down.

Lights went up. The DJ (the school thought it was very progressive, having a DJ) spun down the music, and the room followed suit. Mrs. Fisher stepped up to the microphone and started a long, tear-jerkingly dull speech about when she was prom queen and the girl she'd been competing against kicked her off the stage and she broke her arm, blahblahblah, and the contestants lined up.

One by one they strutted up to the stage—the girls at least, because most of the boys looked like they'd rather be brained with a shovel—and filled in behind the still droning teacher. Somebody in the audience whistled, Chico called _take it off!_ and ducked.

They named the court. They named the king.

They named the queen.

Clarissa Williams (may she be skewered in Hell) stepped forward, all modest tears and bouncy curls, and Jimmy muttered "give you something to cry about" under his breath as she started thanking the academy for more blahblahblah. Mrs. Fisher rolled the podium closer to the spotlight and looped her fingers delicately under the wire shapes of the tiara.

She lifted.

Nadda.

The first sign of trouble was an unflattering scowl, and a nervous little _ahem_ from the yet uncrowned queen. There was a tug. There was a second tug. There was an all-out vicious _yank_. Mrs. Fisher stepped back and regarded the crown with horror.

Clarissa stepped forward—_shoved_ forward, looking murderous. She wrapped her Barbie pink fingernails around the wire and _pulled_. There was a faint twanging snap noise, and then the coating of Spacemonkey Glue gave way.

A string tied inconspicuously to the tiara base snatched taunt.

The other end of the string brought a bucket full of cheery red paint tumbling down from where it had been sitting innocuously just over the podium, and sloshed down the length of Clarrissa William's fluffy taffeta dress.

There was silence.

And then uproar.

Jimmy grinned, elbowed his date, and tried not to get whacked in the face when she threw out an arm and screamed "_Who's that guy?"._

Meanwhile, Chico dashed out the most visible exit in the room. The cry went up…

And _that_, ladies and gentlemen, is how you ruin a prom.

-x-

An hour later, whatsherface was waiting outside in Jimmy's car after getting into a catfight with a nerd chick over whether Lovecraft was a racist or not. A janitor was slipping in through the side entrance, and the floor was empty but for bandos in blue tuxedos and a scattering of outcasts draped in impractical dresses.

At the far end of the dance floor, Jimmy pulled his jacket back on and ran a hand through gelled strands of hair. _Who_ said prom was no fun?

Someone tapped him on the shoulder.

"Proud of yourself?" Edgar asked him, arms crossed, eyes narrowed. There a was a smattering of glitter on his left shoulder.

"Yeah," Jimmy replied, crossing his arms back. "That was some serious _skill_. Admit it."

"You realize that there's a distinct possibility her life won't get any better after high school, don't you? This might very well have been the last big night in store for her, and you ruined it."

Jimmy waved him off. "Trust me, it ain't that big a deal. She's goin' to _college_, forget about little old me, I'm just getting' in what I can while I can."

"What did she ever do to you?"

"Uh, last week she broke into my dorm and replaced all my Stabby Rip Stabstab CDs with _Madonna_."

"Ah…"

Edgar just looked at him for a minute and then shook his head, allowing his arms to fall back at his sides. "Let's just be clear, I do _not_ trust your judgment now. Not in the slightest."

"Aw, c'mon, you know that bit with Chico at the end was genius."

The older man shook his head again, but there was a hint of a smile. Lately, Jimmy was getting a better grasp on Edgar's surprisingly twisted sense of morals, and they were _fascinating_. In the dim lighting, there was something dark about the man standing in front of him—all the right shadows, cut in around his eyes, pressed down at the hollow of his throat…

Jimmy stepped closer and looped his arms around Edgar's neck for the second time that night.

"One last song, _mi __corazón_?"

Edgar turned his head and pursed his lips. "I don't speak Spanish, moron."

"That ain't a no."

So, on a floor scattered with promiscuous band nerds and trampled confetti, there was one last dance. And Jimmy complained about the music, and Edgar told him that they always played _Streetlight People_ at the end of prom, and time suspended for a few moments. Jimmy was amazed with what he got away with. He ran one hand through the close cut hair above Edgar's neck, pressed them closer, and wondered if Edgar had been drinking the punch too.

And to think, they'd been surprised when the rumors started.


	16. Dreams

_Dreams_

The whole first half of this literary doodle comes, inexplicably, narrated in Stephen Colbert's kayfab voice. I... I don't know what's going on. Help me. In other news, it was kind of interesting to write these two being snippy with each other. Actually, it was _fun_, aside from never being sure if I was being serious or what passes for comedic around here. I'm still not sure which it is. You decide, I guess?

* * *

They went to lunch, Edgar and Jimmy. They'd been apartment shopping for three days now, and the grace period had nearly run out. It was Edgar's opinion that they ought to buckle down and fuel up, and get this sorted out before the academy dorm manager literally threw Jimmy and his now-packed luggage out into the street. It was Jimmy's opinion that he was hungry.

No surprise who won.

In the last couple days, the teacher had found that he rather preferred driving in his own rather than Jimmy's car, mostly because the terror he was beginning to associate with yellow lights escalated every time he gave up the driver's seat, and if he had to go to therapy for this he'd never, _ever_ live it down. So when they pulled up to the restaurant it was a Volvo they stepped out of, slamming doors and shaking keys. The restaurant had only recently reopened after a massacre back in February, and Edgar had missed the food if not the service. There weren't many good Lebanese places around.

Heat curled up from the asphalt.

"_You_, sir," Jimmy said as he dashed up behind his companion, "have no taste in women. I mean, seriously, you don't have bad taste—you got _no_ taste. That chick was the frickin' Rosetta Stone of sexy."

He was referring to a woman they'd passed at a stop sign. The first Edgar had noticed of any of it was the teen rolling down his window to yell something smack-dab in the middle of flattery and graphic obscenity. It did flash through Edgar's head, momentarily, that his former student was sitting in the car with the object of his most ardent amorous attentions and also yelling nearly pornographic terms at a startled woman on the street corner, but, eh. Jimmy rarely made sense anyways.

Needless to say, the kid had gotten a talking to. And also his head nearly crushed in the window.

In the parking lot Edgar looked sideways at his companion, incredulous. "The Rosetta Stone?"

"She had _everything_."

The older man rolled his eyes and stepped up to the door. "If you're so sure I'm gay, why does this surprise you?"

"Man, I just didn't know _anybody_ was _that_ blind. I mean, what, I figured you'd at least have some kinda art-critic shit goin' on."

There was a table at the back—he always went for the table in the back—with an odd oil painting hanging above it, like a wild, fiery depiction of eternal damnation. Either this place was strapped for decorations after the explosion, or the artist was related to the owner. Edgar found himself rather inexplicably drawn to it.

"Jimmy," he said, sliding into a chair, "you don't even _like_ women. If I had a penny for every misogynistic sentiment you'd ever given me, I'd have my student loans paid back _and_ I'd own my own practice."

"What? I'm sayin' I wanna fuck 'em, not cuddle with 'em."

Edgar frowned, resting his chin on his hands. "You know, not every woman is your step-mother."

"Oh please," the younger man shot back, smirk fading, "I thought you didn't _do_ Freud."

"Only when he's wrong."

Jimmy snorted. "How about I start saying you're gay 'cause your mom's dead, how'd you like that?"

Edgar raised his arms in surrender. "Okay, okay, no fighting at the table. I concede that I apparently have no taste in women."

Jimmy seemed to take the apology in stride. He shifted a little bit, eyes going bright and narrow. "What turns you on?"

"Oh, Christ, not this again."

"You're gonna tell me eventually! It clearly ain't a great set of tits, an' I guess it isn't surprise sex either—"

Edgar pointed a stern finger at his friend. "Don't you start on that now! I have never been so embarrassed in my _life_. If you ever stick your hands under my clothes in public again, I'll knock your teeth out and _then_ we'll see who's never gets laid."

"Oh," the younger man cut in, "so I got the green light for in private?"

"No, I just might not knock your teeth out. _Might_ not."

Jimmy allowed his raised eyebrow to speak for itself. In the silence- silence, wow, that was nice- Edgar realized he hadn't seen a single waiter yet. He took a deep breath, uncurled his hands with a little effort, and closed his eyes for a second. Breathe. He felt like he'd been playing a game of verbal tennis for the last hour, and desperately needed the tennis equivalent of a time-out. The terminology escaped him. Tennis had always been his mother's thing, not his.

"Why are you being so pushy this week?" Edgar asked, at last, bending back over his chair for a look at the kitchen entrance. "It's just one harassment after another."

"I," the former student said, "was under the impression that we weren't fucking because you were my teacher. You aren't my teacher. I thought we'd be fucking by now."

Oh.

"Your grasp of logic is stunning," Edgar replied, leaning a little further back. "But your original premise is flawed."

"Well what's the problem then?" Jimmy demanded, sounding somewhat miffed. "Is it that lady from graduation?"

"That's certainly part of it," Edgar answered, sitting forward again.

Jimmy squinted at him. "You think I got diseases or something?"

"That… hadn't occurred to me."

"So what is it? Do I have to go—the fuck is that word—mono… monogo… monogamous? 'Cause I can do that! I think."

"I should hope so," Edgar muttered, reaching for a menu.

"What, do I have to stop fighting? Man, you _know_ I dig you but I can only do so much."

"_No_, Jimmy, that's not it."

"Am I not hot enough? Look, I know the teeth ain't exactly supermodel material but you gotta give a guy a chance."

The older man dropped his face into his palms. "It hasn't occurred to you that the answer might be _I'm not gay?"_

Jimmy snorted. "What, that cop-out? Please. Gimme a decent reason."

Edgar groaned.

"Do I have to, like, woo you? 'Cause that I can work with."

"Yes, Jimmy," came the muffled response. "You have to woo me. Because I'm a Victorian lady and this is a romantic comedy. Yes. Great. Where the hell is our waiter."

The teen looked around. "Uh, I think he's outside, hiding in the shrubbery."

"_Why?"_

"Dunno. He's looking at me kind of funny, though."

The teacher sighed and stood, dropping his napkin onto the seat. "I'll go get him."

Ten minutes later, they were waiting on their orders when Jimmy brought the conversation back full circle.

"But what turns you _on_?" he demanded, leaning across the table.

"_Nothing_," Edgar replied, a bit heavy on the snark this time round.

"It can't be _nothing_, Vargas. Even guys like you hafta jerk off eventually."

"Don't _say_ that, we're in a restaurant and we have a _waiter_ and they're going to think we're _freaks_."

"C'mon," the younger man went on, ignoring his companion, "you gotta have fantasies. Voyeurism, or cross-dressing, or rape, or—what, don't make that face at me, there's a fetish for _everything_—there's gotta be _something_."

"No," Edgar insisted, literally putting his foot down. "I _don't_. Have. _Fantasies_."

"Dreams, then," Jimmy said, leaning even closer. "If you don't have fantasies you _definitely _gotta have dreams."

"Dreams," Edgar repeated, brows going up.

"Y'know-" the younger man made an obscene motion, "-_dreams_."

The teacher slapped the table and the silverware skittered away in fear. "I don't have those either!"

-x-

In point of fact, Edgar did dream. All mammals do.

He dreamed with the indistinct haziness, the vague light and shadow of a Da Vinci painting. Edgar dreamed the world in the same way that he saw it by daylight: all ideas and sensations and scattered, brilliant details. But he dreamed of mundane things, mostly—the lack of television left him with little fodder besides the Saturday cartoons of his childhood and the various movies of his adolescence. He dreamed about cereal.

He didn't like to admit that.

There had been a dream about a flaming scarecrow, once. He was sort of proud of that one.

So when the conversation in early June wandered into the bemusing subject of dreams, he hadn't been lying, exactly, when he'd begun insisting to Jimmy that his dreams were really pretty boring, honestly, nothing to discuss here, really _I don't have those_.

By and large, they _were_ overwhelmingly dull.

But he might have been stretching the truth when he insisted, repeatedly, that they'd be of no interest to Jimmy.

-x-

There was one, a very new one, that he had been introduced to maybe a week before.

He dreamed he was walking on a beach. That's how this one started, dull and calm. The shifting footing of cold sand, the battered sunshine—familiar, hadn't he been here recently?

And then two slender hands slid across his stomach.

The warm press against his back was startling and alien and he seized up, joints going rigid. Unfamiliar fingers slid, lightly, tips dragging trails of blinding sweetness behind them. So much more real than the sun or the sand. Irrational terror gripped him, maybe for the single overwhelming reason that he was, in fact, _Edgar_.

"Why so serious?"

Edgar relaxed marginally. Oh, he knew that voice.

"Jimmy," he sighed. "What are you doing here?"

He covered the hands with his own and tried to pull them away, but his muscles might as well have been water for all the good that did. Tips went on drawing tiny circles.

"Followed you," the younger man replied, breath whispering across the nape of Edgar's neck. "You picked a nice spot."

"Mm. Thanks. Can you… let go?"

"No."

Nonplussed, Edgar turned his head, but it did him no good. "Er. Please?"

"Nope."

Edgar felt the brush of elbows, and the hands slid upward by sneaking fractions. It suddenly occurred to him, admittedly belated, that he was dressed for the ocean—that being, hardly dressed at all. He squirmed.

"Y'know," Jimmy went on, voice soft, "I hear sex on the beach is somethin' else."

"You can't possibly be suggesting—"

"An' why not?"

One hand slipped higher, thumbed the tip of a brown nipple—Edgar sucked in a breath, freezing up again in some twisted vestige of prey instinct. _The fuck?_

"C'mon," the younger man murmured, this time against the prickling shell of Edgar's ear. "Why not?"

It was a real question, for a real answer, and in the echo of it Edgar knew immediately that the universe they stood in was sand and sea and the two of them, and nothing else. An endless universe of four solitary elements, no jobs or families or contrived distractions. And he searched for an answer somewhere in them.

"Let me," the younger man insisted. "You want me, you want me so badly, Christ knows I want you. Why not?"

_Because I don't trust you_. The older man tried to say, squeezing the words. _I don't trust me. I don't trust _me_._

But nothing came out, and the grip on his chest tightened, melded against him, and his knees collapsed under him as Jimmy pulled them both down to the cold folds of the sand. Calves dug in on either side of Edgar's calves. Kneeling, and Edgar had the gall to feel suddenly, overwhelmingly serious. No jokes, this time.

Something was twisting up in his chest, like a spring tightening in a wind-up toy, and it felt like locked doors and nasty smiles, and it wasn't exactly that he was _afraid _of Jimmy—now, or before, or sometime else, somewhere else—but simply that a flight instinct was ratcheting up, building pressure underneath his ribcage.

"I wanna fuck you," Jimmy hummed, beside his ear, "so bad. Throw you down an' rip everything off. Y' know that, don't you?"

The older man made a quiet strangled noise.

"You know it," Jimmy went on, "y' just don't believe it. Face it, mi corazón, you're scared to be happy."

Edgar made another noise, this one displeased. Who was the one with the psychology degree here?

Now Jimmy's right hand dropped, and one long finger curled around the waistband of the older man's shorts. Somewhere, at the back of it all, he knew he was dreaming and that whatever happened was immaterial, but that didn't change that it was real _now_ and the edge of his only clothing was inching downwards, and he could _feel _his heart jackhammering.

The really worrying sensation, though, was the knot of heat and hardness pressing into his ass.

_Okay,_ he tried to say, _this has gone far enough_, but the same muteness clamped back down around his throat and left him with nothing as his shorts slipped down past the point of no return. How _convenient_.

"When's the last time somebody did this for you?" Jimmy asked, the curve of a grin in his voice.

Edgar gave up trying to talk at that point, which _was_ convenient because the answer would have been _never_. And he did not _at all _want someone laughing at him after pulling his pants off, regardless of the reason.

The first touch was light, like a whisper, and then it was all Jimmy, pushy and frantic and unpredictable, and Edgar collapsed backwards clinging to the knowledge that he was powerless here. It wasn't like he had a choice, realistically.

"Yeah, sure," the younger man murmured, "lie back, I got this."

It wasn't so much the feeling of individual strokes, of particular motions and the particular grasp, but the aching sweetness of _touch_, full stop, of hands that he'd held and hands that he'd brushed as he collected papers, somewhere far away in a different world, of hands that he knew so well now tugging down to... Just knowing that—

"Oh, you want me _so_ fucking bad, you motherfuckin' liar."

And then Edgar had woken up, panting, with one hand sliding down towards the angry hard-on straining his boxers. Mother of God. And which was worse, not waking soon enough or waking too soon?

After a moment of silence in the darkness, Edgar had bitten his lip and finished the deed.


	17. Nightmares

_Nighmares_

...gave me so much trouble... Nng.

* * *

Jimmy dreams too.

Jimmy dreams in comic-book spreads of color and form, twisting narration with ends already written, waiting ahead at the edge of their covers. He dreams fantastic things, wild things held together by the logic of sheer belief. He wears other people's faces, character's masks, dares deeds that even _he_ wouldn't try his hand at, if awake. He has cruel dreams. He dreams pain, all across the board, of every different kind. More than once he's woken up crying.

He doesn't like to admit that.

But he keeps coming back, and it's not hard to see why. You can only fight the real world so much. In the real world, you can't risk getting kicked out of school, and you can't risk losing your rep, and you walk a fine line in the air over the ocean of failure. In the real world, you have to remember that other people have feelings too, that the police would catch you, that you don't have the power or the accomplices or the money to dare. But in dreams—

You can fight as hard as you're willing.

He's been James Bond, he's been a murderer on Death Row, he's been royalty and he's been trash. In eighth grade he dreamed about flying between stars. In tenth grade he dreamed about blowing up his school. In eleventh grade he dreamed about killing this one girl, over and over every night.

By the end of twelfth grade, he dreamed about a bedroom.

-X-

Jimmy is a captain in a war. He's watching a green, shadowy city curl out from underneath his balcony and the pulsing edges of a jungle not too far away.

"Captain," the lady beside him is saying, a graceful curve of silk draped over her like a film of ink. "Do you have a woman, back home?"

Jimmy looks up, and the answer is painted into the scene like a sliver of light reflecting off the marble floor. "No, but I have a woman here."

She gives him an odd little smile, lips a shade of reddish bronze. "And when you leave here? Will you leave me too?"

"Worried?" he replies, because it's better than 'obviously'.

The woman reaches for her glass of champagne, eerily golden against the dark purple clouds in the distance and the glowing sunlight here. "When you love someone more than they love you, to be anything else is foolishness."

Jimmy frowns.

"I know you," she goes on, "just enough. Just enough to love you. Just enough to be wary. When you love someone who may or may not love you, the world is a passionate, dangerous place."

Something feels wrong. The scene is veering off course. "We… I'm supposed to be seducing you. This isn't… it's not what I… expected."

"Go inside," the woman says, as if he hadn't said anything at all. "You've kept them waiting long enough."

With one uncomfortable, sobered glanced back at the unnerving bump in his narrative, the young man pushes through the doors.

-x-

Jimmy looked up at the building. The broken shutter on the second story wobbled in the breeze and there was something suspiciously similar to dried blood splattered across the far end of the wall, and he reached into his pocket for the wad of sticky bills that would constitute his rent from now on. Someone on the upper floor started screaming.

Lips pursed, Edgar stalked by with a box in his arms. "Don't look at _me_," he groused, "I _told _you to try the one on Dormier Street."

Jimmy ignored him, and turned back to the impatient Indian guy who was about to become his landlord.

" There," he said, waving the vaguely greenish paper, "that's all of it. You aren't gonna, like… check in all the time, right?"

His new landlord snatched up the money. "The fuck would I do that? I'll be back in a month." He paused and glanced over at Edgar who was struggling with the door, tipping precariously as he reached around his box. "Tell your friend there not to break anything, or _someone's_ going to pay for it and it won't be _me_."

Jimmy watched the stooped, glaring man turn on heel and slither into his shiny black car. The younger man squinted at the taillights for a moment before making a gesture that implied someone's face ought to have been covered in something intimate and unpleasant.

"Stop doing that!" Edgar called through the window, shaking Jimmy's one silver spoon at the screen. "You have to at least _pretend_ to be nice to your landlord. Besides, it's obscene."

"You only say that when something turns you on!" the teen yelled back.

Edgar gave him a look _almost_ bordering on sheepish, and then disappeared into the unlit room.

Sun glinted off the last of Jimmy's trash bags, and he regarded it for a moment before snorting and hefting it up. Mysterious motherfucker. With his mysterious motherfucking expressions. God only knew what was going on in that man's continuous fucking internal monologue.

"Put the kitchen shit in the kitchen!" he shouted, heading for the door. A strip of peeling green paint stuck to his shoulder as he elbowed the door open. The hallway was painted the color of nicotine, and there was a lighter spot on one wall where he assumed a picture used to hang. Which was weird. There was a minute of fumbling as he tried to open his new door with a trash bag in his arms, and then it slid open like a creaky warped charm. Edgar was leaning against the far wall with his arms crossed.

"Where else would I put it?" the older man asked, one brow raised.

Jimmy shrugged and dropped the bag. "I dunno, the closet? 'S not too hard to get them confused."

They both glanced toward the tiny kitchenette. With a little lubrication, a skinny woman could fit almost comfortably inside. That wasn't actually high on Jimmy's list of problems, though, since lately he'd been eating whatever Edgar had the time to feed him and basically nothing else, and probably would continue on that way for a long time.

Jimmy grabbed the bag of kitchen stuff and ducked inside.

"Are you going to call your dad for the rest of your stuff?" Edgar asked him, still slumped against the living room wall. Or what was supposed to be a living room, he guessed. It was the only room besides the bedroom and the cubicle masquerading as a kitchen, so that sort of made it so by default. "Chairs, blankets? Posters?"

"I'm not callin' dad for _nothin'_," Jimmy replied, examining the miniature refrigerator in the hopes of determining its beer-holding capacity. "He gave me five hundred bucks an' I'm fuckin' well not gonna ask for more."

The older man made a surrendering motion. "Just remember that you said that when you have to eat dinner on the floor."

"I'll grab something from the curb," Jimmy insisted, closing the fridge. Jesus he was hungry. He hadn't eaten since… breakfast, the day before? That was the last time he'd seen Edgar, so that was the last time he'd eaten.

"You're going to take furniture out of dumpsters and put it in your _home_?"

"Did I say dumpsters?"

"No. But you were thinking it."

Jimmy snorted and made his way to the bedroom. Trash bags full of his clothes and shit lined the hallway, like so much modern art, and he paused to pop one open and dig out a case full of knives. Ugly little fuckers, but they were the first ones he'd ever made and he liked having them around. Maybe he'd get a chance to make more, once he got settled in.

"What's that?" Edgar asked, poking his head around the corner. "Instrument case? I didn't know you played an instrument."

"I don't. Though, y'know I've been thinkin' about taking one up. Nothing says _fuck me_ better than a couple chords on a guitar."

"It's always sex with you," Edgar muttered, flopping out onto the floor in front of the hallway in a distinctly undignified way. "I swear I wasn't like that when I was your age."

"No?" The younger man looked up. "That's probably 'cause you wouldn't know what to do with a naked stranger if they were handcuffed to your headboard."

"Call the police?" Edgar suggested, lifting a brow.

"My point exactly."

The teacher on the floor rolled over, crossing his arms over his chest. "I'm actually not entirely sure I want to hear the answer, but tell me anyways because I've been wondering for a while. How come you're such a big expert on sex, Mr. Voted-Most Likely-to-End-Up-in-Jail?"

"Still waitin' on a certificate for that one," Jimmy mused.

"I honestly can't see how you have as much experience as you claim to," Edgar went on, slipping into his psychologist voice. "You've never had a stable relationship, not that you've told me about, and the majority of people you meet hate you on sight—besides which, you're not exactly Brad Pitt, not to put too fine a point on it."

The younger man glared at him. "You tryin' to say something?"

"Just that I'm not sure where you managed to get all the experience you're constantly alluding to."

"Oh. So, you wanna know about my exes, that's all?"

Edgar rubbed the bridge of his nose. He _had _been having a long day, Jimmy acknowledged charitably, since he'd filled out most of the requisite renting paperwork that morning while Jimmy was harassing the neighbors. And also helped unpack.

"_Do_ you have exes?" the older man asked, eventually, in a no-nonsense sort of way.

"Nah," the teen answered. "Fuck 'em an' lose 'em. You just gotta know where to look, see. Parties, parties are good for that, an' concerts. Gotta know the right lines. Gotta promise the right shit."

He neglected to mention that the best technique in his arsenal was keeping an eye out for people drunk out of their fucking minds. Not the only one, but certainly the most time tested. Once or twice, and he still wasn't exactly sure how he felt about this, he'd taking it to the logical extreme and left the kid still sleeping (more or less) on a balcony. It had seemed like a clever idea at the time.

"Stay with one person too long," he added, "an' you're basically tippin' your throat up an' waiting for the knife. 'S not worth watchin' your back all the time to get some easy-reach ass. I get what I want, an' I leave first."

"Oh," Edgar replied, raising his eyebrows—lowering, from Jimmy's perspective. "Is _that_ all?"

"Whadaya mean, _is that all?"_

The teacher rolled over again, tugging at the fibers of nicotine-brown carpet. He didn't look up. "It's just that I was expecting something a little more… mysterious."

Jimmy narrowed his eyes. "You're about to do the shrink thing again, aren't you?"

Edgar opened his mouth, and you could almost hear the buzz of _single parent household misogyny abuse loner_—and it chilled Jimmy, because he hadn't realized exactly how much he'd given away in the past six months until it all welled up behind his former-councilor's mouth like a deluge of sharp black accuracy. How had—_when_ had he gotten so careless?

How _much_ did Edgar know?

And then the darker man snapped his mouth closed and pushed himself to his feet, and looked away.

"Come on," he said, "we still have to get your mattress in here, and I'm fading fast. Those things don't carry themselves."

The younger man regarded his friend for a moment, tapping hollow beige walls with chipping black nails. "Alright," he said at last, "but I'm not gonna be surprised if somebody's dragged it off by now. Can't just leave shit unattended in this city."

Edgar scowled. "I'm fairly certain that thing weighs more than my car. Anybody stupid enough to steal it is probably still trying to get it over the crosswalk. We could catch them easily."

The two men headed for the door, boots and sneakers scuffing over the matted carpet. Someone probably _had_ stolen the mattress, and they probably _were _about six feet from the place they started, at a generous estimate.

"What I don't understand," Edgar mused, almost to himself, as they stepped out into the heavy sunlight, "is why you're going to all the trouble of _wooing_ a man who has ostensibly no interest at all in sleeping with you, if you are in fact so sure that everyone's going to stab you in the back eventually. I don't know. Is it a conquest thing?"

Wisely, Jimmy chose that moment to change the subject.

-x-

Jimmy is at a party. He's wearing a suit—if he were elsewhere he'd be disgusted, but right now the suit is perfect. It tucks in at his waist, and it's sleek like something with four wheels and a spoiler. The room is full of dark eyes and smooth movements, a crowd of twining, sipping, slender bodies. He glances down at the watch on his wrist, notes some oddity about the numerals that tells him he's walked into a trap.

He turns his attention to the soaring windows and the tiny silver moon caught in one of the panes. He knows that he has time to spare and for now he's perfectly safe, so he snaps up a glass of something from a passing tray and ducks into the heart of the ballroom. There's a crowd around something not too far away, and it must be interesting.

There's a girl standing at the edge of the crowd, and Jimmy knows that she's one from his reservoir of eager one and two night stands. He taps her on the shoulder and she lights up, pink lips turning up in an unremarkable smile. He slides a hand around her waist and they push through the crowd like they own the place, shoving their way into the innermost ring of adoring spectators.

The man sitting at the center of the circle glances at them for a spare second, just a fraction lift of the brow as he meets Jimmy's eye behind slim, flashing glasses.

"You can't possibly mean that," a man at the edge of the circle says, arms crossed.

The man with the glasses turns his attention back on his opponent. "Oh no? Then I suppose I don't mean much of anything at all. If you don't mean what you say…"

He leaves the sentence hanging.

"Mister Vargas!" the irritated man at the edge of the crowd exclaims. "It would be much easier to hold a conversation with you if you would state your position properly at some point during the argument!"

The stranger regards his adversary for a moment, and then sits back with an amused twist around the lips. "Would it?"

There's a flurry of movement as the other man throws down his handkerchief and stalks away through the press of bodies, and every face in the circle rushes forward to congratulate the stranger in their midst.

Without thinking, Jimmy shrugs off the grip of the girl—he wasn't supposed to do that, that wasn't in the scene—and pushes through until he's standing in front of the stranger.

"Edgar?" he demands, squinting. "Edgar, what are you doing here?"

"What," the darker man says, "I'm not allowed to go to parties? _You're_ the one who looks out of place here."

The younger man clutches at his forehead, a gesture of confusion he's seen in a thousand comic books and movies since the time he was old enough to watch. "You don't… I've done this one before, lots of times, an' you aren't… you're not part of the scene."

"Really?" Edgar replies, amused. "Well then. I better get out of it, hm?"

The older man stands, unfolding gracefully, and slips through the throng as easily as paper sliding into a slot. Jimmy stares after him for a beat, and then he's throwing himself through gaps between shoulders, searching the floor desperately for a figure in slim white suit. Nothing. People holding glasses and tables strewn with jewel-colored bottles and nothing.

Then a flash of white at the very edge of the room. Jimmy runs for the hallway, and bursts through the doors.

-X-

There are two views on sex, as far as Jimmy knew, and he told Edgar so, later that day.

One. Sex is evil, and it wants to corrupt your children. It's the devil's work and it's also only allowed when God says you're officially married. It's the number one way to fuck yourself over for an afterlife. It ruins innocence. It's that thing that you never talk about in public because you don't want people to look at you like you've got a disease or a bad case of raised-in-the-trailer-park and you never, ever admit that you feel it under the surface of your skin, itching when the man on television starts alluding to the details of the latest headline crime. Sex is meaningful.

Two. Sex is cool. Sex is the currency that never runs out or bounces or gets stolen on the subway. It's power, the notches in your bedpost like the notches in a tribal chieftain's spear. Sex is validation, sex is fun, sex is the thing that trumps all other things short of breathing, and even _that_ is worth a trade now and then. Sex is two bodies making noises that will turn you off until you've made them yourself. Sex is meaningless.

These are your options. Pick one.

One view is the mainstream. He grew up on that, never questioned it too much, kept his head down and his aberrances to himself. The other view is the underground, and it's the truth. It fits. You live, you do some stuff, you die. That's a human life. The only part you've got control over is the _do some stuff_, namely what stuff and how much of it. Jimmy does not plan on wasting his one variable sitting on the couch and eating fries. Get what you want. Do as much as you can. If sex is what people want—and it is, everyone _knows_ it is—then you'd have to be fucking retarded to spend your whole life taking cold showers and watching your wife get fat.

So he doesn't.

Maybe he isn't the best looking thing on the market, he's had a couple people tell him so and they're probably right, but he's got ways and if you want something bad enough then you'll find ways to get it. It started off as a power thing, he'll admit that—though not to Edgar—but the rest followed fast enough.

Fuck 'em and leave 'em. He thinks that he missed out on the chance to really _live _the_ fuck _out of that motto when his stolen car stalled out last August in the middle of a Washington highway. Instead he's been stuck walking this motherfucking tightrope for the last six months. But regardless of lifestyle, he's still got the truth wedged in at the bottom of his shriveled, punk ass heart and he knows what he knows and he's been promising himself that one of these days—sooner, not later—he's going to have a chance to really give it a whirl.

Until then, a boy can dream.

-x-

In the hallway, Edgar is standing leaned up against the intricate wrought iron gate over the elevator, and everything is lit dim yellow.

"The party is back that way," he points out, as the elevator makes an unusual sliding noise. "Don't mind me, really. Like you said, I'm just crashing it, so to speak. It looks like you have a date, so don't let me get in the way, god knows why you'd leave a pretty girl like that alone in a room to chase after _me_. And you think I'm hard to read. Not that it isn't flattering, I suppose—" He pauses, waiting for god knows what response. "Well. You'll want a few minutes, then?"

The younger man opens his mouth and then closes it. He didn't follow any of that.

Edgar looks around at the dark hallway and sighs. "I know I know. Wrong scene. Here, let's go somewhere I belong."

The elevator dings, faintly, and then the older man steps back through it as the iron work slides away. Jimmy comes stumbling in after him, off kilter. One of the little white buttons lights up, and the floor drops out from under them as they go speeding downwards, walls flying past walls, until the whole thing clicks to a perfect, instant halt.

"This way."

Edgar leads him to a room with a number on the door, and the lights flicker and buzz like the ones in that cheap hotel Jimmy remembers visiting once. Or maybe he saw it in a movie. It's hard to tell the difference.

"This one is a favorite," the darker man remarks, gesturing at the door, purplish light turning his coffee colored skin almost white at the edges. "Your favorite, anyway. What that says about you, I won't venture to suggest."

He pushes the door open and slips inside, and as Jimmy trails behind he can see that it leads to something oddly reminiscent of a classroom, familiar, empty aside from the man now strolling towards his chair, shrugging off his jacket.

"Now," he says, carelessly undoing the knot of his black silk tie, "what do you want, Jimmy? I can never guess what it is you're after, night to night. So mysterious, sometimes…"

The younger man looks around the room, at the empty desks and the copper moon drifting outside the half-blinded windows, and at Edgar sitting in his chair, tugging off his tie.

"You think I'm mysterious?" the teen asks, moving closer.

"You _know_ you're mysterious. You do it on purpose." Edgar lets the strip of silk settle down either side of his chest. "So, how are we doing this?"

Jimmy feels his heart thump faster, starting to jitter. He knows this is stupid, it isn't like he hasn't misread these signals before, but he's seen too much porn not to go dry in the mouth when a man is sitting in front of him, unknotting his tie and tilting his head like _so_.

"Doing what?" Jimmy asks, because he doesn't want to look like a retard when it turns out that no, Edgar was _not _suggesting anything of that nature, thank you very much. It's happened before.

Edgar lifts his eyebrows. "_This,"_ he replies, and he tugs open the first button on his dress shirt, slipping down to the next.

The younger man swallows thickly. "You, uh, you mean…"

"Whatever you want it to mean," Edgar says, working his way steadily down the line of buttons, "you're the one paying."

Jimmy blinks, attempting to process that comment. The man in front of him rolls white cotton off his shoulders, tan shoulders blurred with the white reflection of the moon hanging outside, and he gives Jimmy an almost dour look. _Impress me,_ it says.

"Paying?" Jimmy repeats, the first pangs of a quiet dread flickering in his gut.

"Well yes," Edgar answers, bemused, "Just like the first time and every time since. Why else would I have sex with you?"

The younger man looks down at himself, and then the scene starts to catch up with him somewhere in the middle of the dawning horror and he realizes who he is and who he's with, and he finally knows where this is going although it's no comfort at all.

"My stunning personality?" he suggests, as his chest collapses in on itself.

Edgar laughs and starts to undo the button on his slacks, graceful fingers tugging at metal.

"'Cause you like me?" Jimmy tries again, flinching at the earnestness creeping into his own voice.

The older man looks up, sits back in his chair. "You don't fuck people because you like them," he replies, the words alien coming from the familiar, prim mouth. "You fuck them because you can and then you leave them for the same reason. You should know, it's your motto."

The teen takes a graceless step forward, catching himself halfway through the motion.

"But—"

"Look, you and I both know that the only reason you keep coming back to me is that I make you pay for what you want. If I let you fuck me for nothing, you'd just walk out and leave because you never want the same person twice."

"I would _not_!"

Edgar laughs again, colder this time. "What more is there for you when you know that you can have someone? What's left after that? There's no conquest, just strings. They'll only stab you in the back the second you turn away, right?"

Jimmy's mouth hangs open. That wasn't what he meant, it wasn't—didn't he know? Didn't he realize that the motto and the man in front of him existed in two polar worlds? Edgar had always been different—it just came automatically, like a reflex, sliding over anything else that might contradict it so smoothly that he'd hardly ever noticed.

"That's not talking about _you!"_ he gapes, confounded.

"Of course it is," Edgar insists, frowning and half naked and so unbelievably _wrong_. "It's about people and I'm a person. Look, the fact is that sex is just a thing and you're the one who taught me that. Thanks, by the way. It's really done wonders for my social life."

Blinking, knees weakening, Jimmy tries to wrap his head around this scene. "But you, you were always so—you never wanted to—"

"The old me. Boring, mainstream, coward Edgar. Like you said, a bit of a late bloomer, but I think I'm making up for it. There was a boy downstairs, you know, and I think I'll see if I can get him over the balcony before I go."

"Do you—d'you hear yourself?" the younger man demands, voice climbing higher and higher into something nearing hysteria. "The _fuck_ is wrong with you? You aren't like this, you, you _respect_ people an' shit, an'…"

Edgar props his cheek up on one fist, regarding the boy through narrowed eyes. "Jimmy, do you _want_ to fuck me or not?"

"I—well, _yeah—"_

"Then what are you wasting time for? It's not like I've got all night, and I'm not under any illusions that you're interested in my company these days."

"But I _am,"_ Jimmy insists, wretchedly. "Of fuckin' _course _I am. You're my best… Jesus Edgar, I _love_ you, man. You know that! I told you, you kissed me, Jesus_ Christ _Edgar_, what happened to you?"_

The man who's turning out to be so little like the Edgar he knows laughs, the same cold laugh as before. "What the hell do _you_ know about love, Jimmy Eurige? It's _your_ motto, _fuck'em and leave 'em_, isn't it? It's the only sane thing to do, really. Oh, yes, I used to think there was hope for people—for me, for us, but you were right. You can't trust people. You can't love people. You taught me that."

"But that's just _words_!" the younger man shouts, and before he understands what he's done, he has Edgar by the bare shoulders and he's shaking him. "That's just shit I started saying 'cause the guys think it sounds cool! It's about _them, _it's about everyone else! It doesn't _mean_ anything, Edgar, it's got nothing to do with us!"

The man whose face is now inches away from his own snorts. "Of course it does. Look at the way you live. Look at the way I used to live. We've got two choices, obviously, and I've made mine. You can either spend your life simpering and lying to yourself and pretending people are worth it, or you can come clean about the whole thing and fuck life as hard as it fucks you. Love is for liars. You either let it walk all over you, or you walk all over it."

"There's gotta be a third option!_" _Jimmy cries, wildly, fingers digging into moonlit skin. "_There has to_! Why can't a guy love you an' fuck you too?"

A thin strand of silence stretches across the room. Lifting one eloquent brow, Edgar sits back in his chair, triumphant.

"_I_ don't know," he says, a hint of what might actually be _snark_ growing in his voice. "Why _can't_ you?"

And then Jimmy woke, face first in the poorly covered mattress that was now serving as his bed, covered in sweat and fists knotted into the sheet. He blinked stupidly for a second. The sound of a bottle breaking on the floor above him cleared up any lingering doubts as to his current location.

"Ohh," he moaned, rolling over. He ground the heels of his palms into his eyes. "Edgar, you motherfuckin' _bitch face_. You're a bitch face even when I'm _dreamin'_ about you."

So not cool. The _balls_ on that frigging figment, _seriously._ Like he didn't get enough psychiatrist mumbojumbo when he was awake.

After a moment of seething, Jimmy turned to look at the blocky red numbers on his alarm clock, also tossed carelessly on the ground just like the mattress. 3:50 AM. He groaned. He'd been asleep less than two hours and his pansy-ass motherfucking conscience was already starting in on him, and it _looked just like Edgar_.

Great.

But, he admitted after another minute or two of continued seething, it could have been worse. Could have been the one with the rose petals where he made high-pitched, girly noises and clung to Edgar like a little _bitch_.

Some minutes later into the night, he shifted back into sleep, and he dreamed an unremembered dream about a beach.


	18. Pursuit

_Pursuit_

Well, I'm back after a long break. We'll be winding this story down in the next five or so chapters, so let's do this thing! Oh, and kiddies? Do not try this at home! Redbull and Vodka can be harmful to your health! Edgar is not a good role model!

* * *

Jimmy threw himself onto the roof of a beat-up ford truck. His companion, out of place in his loose blue jeans and white polo, winced as the machine made a noise of protest. Jimmy passed him one of the sodas and pointed towards the middle of the circle in front of them, just in time to catch sight of Chico's nose breaking.

"See," he said, in a half-imitation of Edgar's usual teaching tones, "it don't much matter who wins now. If Chico gets up now, that'll decide everything that needs decidin'."

"It isn't a contest?" Edgar murmured back, eyes fixed on the two thrashing teens in front of him.

"More like a …demonstration," the younger man replied.

When they had walked up- some ten minutes ago, after Jimmy's fancy little box of a cellphone had started rattling on the table of the diner- Edgar had drawn some odd looks from the guys. It was evening, and the muted sunlight had turned his white shirt an odd shade of yellow, and Jimmy had gone striding up to the circle as bills were being dropped in two separate supermarket bags, with the teacher shuffling along behind him. This wasn't Edgar's first showdown, but last time _Jimmy_ had been the one taking punches, and Edgar had probably been distracted by that.

He could still remember the box of first aid the older man had dragged along, and the feeling of bandages yanked tight around his arm by hands with precious little practice and inexplicable gentleness. That was in March, wasn't it?

This time, Jimmy had tossed his cash in with the rest of Chico's supporters and grabbed a seat on the hood of the nearest automobile while Edgar—stiff-shouldered, half-familiarized Edgar—picked his way over and took the empty place beside him. Nobody said anything about it. That was half because the fight was only just gearing up, and half because Jimmy had knocked a tooth out of the last guy who _cast aspersions _on Edgar Vargas.

"I love it when you come to these things," Jimmy whispered, bumping shoulders with the man beside him.

"Thought I was embarrassing you, actually," Edgar replied, hands rubbing awkwardly at denim. "If you'd given me some warning, I could have changed shirts at least."

"Don't worry about it," the teen said, with a shooing motion. "I got enough street cred for the both of us to share easy."

Edgar turned his attention away from Chico's staggering figure for a moment. "Do you want me to come to the next one with you?"

"What," Jimmy started, "doesn't it, like, offend your sensibilities an' shit?"

"It's consensual," the older man shrugged. "I can't see anything wrong with it as long as you always back up when the other guy taps out. Besides," he went on, turning back, "there's something mesmerizing about it, don't you think?"

Jimmy felt this uncomfortable sensation in his gut, like creeper vines made of velvet were climbing up his torso on fast-forward. Unsure what to make of that, after a moment he gave up chasing down particulars and just grinned.

"Sure man," he said, bumping shoulders again, "anytime you want. We can do this until the last of these idiots gets carted off to jail or you ditch me for good, whichever comes first."

Edgar raised a brow. "No prizes for guessing that one."

-x-

It wasn't quite midnight. The night was young, as far as Jimmy was concerned, and he'd only gotten off work a couple hours before—dumb work, but it was going to pay for what he needed and that was the only bit he cared about. And it had let him sleep till two, which was convenient.

He was standing outside Edgar's apartment, tossing a rock from hand to hand. This was his third rock now, but he wasn't going to be discouraged by that. After another moment of waiting, he chucked it at the living room window and it bounced off the cross-section with a low _thud_.

Maybe he needed bigger rocks.

He was searching the wilted grass around his feet for something substantially larger when the sound of a latch snapping open reached his ears.

"Let me guess," Edgar's voice called out, deadpan, "Jimmy."

The teen grinned in the darkness and dashed towards the open window spilling faint yellow light over Edgar's shoulders. He wrapped his hands over the window sill, leaning forward across the opening—their noses nearly touched.

"Were you throwing _rocks_ at my window?" Edgar demanded, surprisingly not backing up.

"Uh, yeah."

"What is this, an eighties movie?"

Jimmy shrugged. "I dunno, it's pretty textbook stuff. I'm new to the whole 'wooing' thing."

"Oh Christ," Edgar muttered, "it's going to be a long night."

The younger man ignored him. "C'mon, grab your keys an' shit, I'm takin' you to a romantic movie."

Edgar gave him one of those _looks_ that indicated the beating of one's head against the nearest hard surface was beginning to sound like a tempting option.

"Who's paying?" the older man asked, at last.

"_Me_, duh. What do you think I am, an idiot?"

Edgar relaxed slightly. "Only sometimes, Jimmy. Only sometimes. How did you get the money, though? I thought it would take you at least another couple days to get work." He paused. "Wait, you didn't steal it, did you?"

"Hey, I take _offense_ at that. I wouldn't take you to a movie with stolen cash."

The teacher relaxed a little bit more.

"I spent the stolen cash on my _rent_," Jimmy finished.

Some ten minutes—and one near-collision and a few instances of Edgar muttering fervent prayers and demanding to know why he hadn't been allowed to drive—later, the two men stood side by side on the sidewalk of the theater, concrete below their feet radiating some of the clinging heat of the day.

The marquee above their heads glowed street-dust yellow. The black blocky letters did not seem to be inspiring confidence in Edgar, who pushed his glasses tighter against his face and scrunched his eyebrows in a fantastically unattractive way.

"I thought you said we were going to a romantic movie? Not that I have any particular preference for romantic movies, I just really thought that's what you said."

"That's what I said," the younger man replied, twisting a finger around the chain that hung from his wallet. "Romantic movie."

"_Jimmy_," the teacher pointed out, "we're going to _Punch Club_. That clearly says 'Punch Club_'._ There has never been and never will be a romance titled _Punch Club_."

"Yeah?" Jimmy said, nonplussed. "I thought it was fine."

Two hours later, Edgar and Jimmy left the theater arm in arm, raving about the complex philosophical dialogue inherent in the possible interpretations of psychosis, and the most excellent explosions, respectively. And also vice versa.

-X-

That was Thursday night. On Saturday night Jimmy showed up at Edgar's apartment again, forgoing the window rout this time. He let himself in the front door—only door, actually, as far as he'd seen—and killed time waiting to be discovered by wandering through the living room, reading titles on the over-stuffed bookshelf and searching for pictures on the counters and walls. He managed to find two: the first of a younger Edgar and an unfamiliar girl standing together under the massive lights of Broadway, and the second of a young couple—his parents, judging by the nose on his mother and the skin on his father—in a tiny frame at the top of the bookshelf.

Jimmy had a weird, uncomfortable moment when he realized that the only thing he really knew about Edgar's life before the academy was… that he'd never been in love. And he figured that Edgar was an orphan, but he didn't know, really, because Edgar had never come out and said it.

"You know, I really could have sworn I locked the door."

Jimmy looked back over his shoulder at Edgar, who was now standing in the door with a dog-eared bible in his hand. His middle finger bookmarked a page near the beginning.

"Found the spare key," Jimmy replied, dropping the last photograph back where he'd found it. "I'm the master of key-hidin', in case you forgot."

Edgar shook his head. "I should just make you a copy, it would save my windows and my nerves a lot of abuse."

"Aw, what you got to be scared'a? Anybody breaks into your house, you hit 'em upside the head with that skillet thing."

They both spared a look towards the kitchenette, where the skillet was resting innocuously on top of the toaster, for easy reaching. Jimmy was fairly certain that he never wanted to see what Edgar could do with that thing when you got him _really_ scared—or godforbid, really _mad_.

Unless it was happening to somebody else. Then he might be curious.

"So what are you doing in my house at this hour?" the older man asked, with a purse of the lips that said he wasn't expecting _a cup of tea_ to be the answer.

"Stage two of project _Knight in Dark Black Armor. _I'm taking you out!"

"Okay, _one_, that is the most pretentious name you could have _possibly _come up with, and I've seen your poetry so I know. Two, we just went to a movie night before last."

Jimmy waved a hand, unconcerned. He was going to hit this like he hit everything: fast and random and definitely not looking both ways before he crossed the street. "Band's only in town tonight, it's totally underground an' shit. They'll be gone tomorrow."

"A band," Edgar repeated. He set the bible down on the arm of the sofa like an a-frame house. "After your taste in romantic _movies_, I shudder to think of what a band entails."

"Aw, don't be like that, y'know you loved the movie. Come on, the show'll be great too. I got us in for _free_."

"And how did you manage that?"

Jimmy opened his mouth, and snapped it shut again when something occurred to him just in time. "Before I answer that," he said, "we aren't actually _dating_ yet, are we?"

Edgar just looked at him. "You know what? I retract the question."

The older man turned around and headed back to his bedroom, and Jimmy wasted little time running after him. The room at the end of the house was messier than the last time he'd seen it, and the stack of books beside the bed had been knocked over. Edgar busied himself picking them up.

"Please, Edgar? It'll be cool. You can, like, psychologically evaluate the band members or whatever. You can mosh. Do you mosh? I think you'd like it."

The teacher looked up, frowning faintly.

"I'm really not in a great mood," he admitted, stuffing a bookmark a bit too hard into the binding of _Canterbury Tales_. "I don't think I'd be very good company."

Edger muttered something else, but it was too low to follow., and then the air conditioner cracked to life in a way that made Jimmy wonder how you ever got to sleep in here. He dropped onto the edge of the mattress, boots tucked against the frame.

"You just need a distraction," he insisted, reaching into the top pocket of his multi-pocketed cargo pants. He pulled out two tickets. "What kinda… suitor or whatever would I be if I left you here an' went off partying without you?"

"Suitor?" Edgar echoed, cracking the hint of a smile.

"That's the… what, noun form of woo, right? One who woos?"

"Keep talking like that and I might start thinking you graduated high school."

"Y'were _there_, dickface. I totally graduated."

"Oh yeah?" Edgar countered, "Only because I spent a week convincing the officials that they really didn't want to see you back in the office again come September."

"Huh." The teen paused. "An' I didn't even have to blow you."

Edgar tossed a copy of _Pride and Prejudice _at his head, but it went wide and hit the wall with a dull flopping sound.

"Come with me," Jimmy pressed, "'s better than goin' to bed at ten on a Friday night."

"There's nothing wrong with ten on a Friday night," Edgar muttered, but he wasn't making eye contact and that mean Jimmy was winning.

"Sure, if you're somebody's _grandpa_. Here," he went on, jumping off the bed. He pushed back the folding doors on the closet and started rattling through the coat hangers. "Find you somethin' badass an' grab you a drink an'—hey, how d'you feel about eyeliner?"

The older man looked at him, helpless, and then turned back to the stack of books. "I draw the line at makeup," he muttered.

-X-

The club was only open one night a week, unless there was somebody really impressive in town. Impressive reads "so far underground they could start a catacomb rental business." This week, they were open a second night and the meaning of that was clear to anybody who was anybody who was not a nobody. Jimmy had an informant, as it happened, because the only times he was interested in the club were those second nights a week, and that sort of made him a somebody-nobody as far as the club was concerned. People knew him, yeah, but he'd never gone through the arduous process of entering and establishing a proper reputation in the society.

Jimmy explained this to Edgar as they drove down town with the windows down.

"So you're saying you never properly _debuted_?" the older man asked, in a tone of voice that implied he was making a historical reference that Jimmy was definitely not familiar with.

"I dunno, maybe? So anyways," the teen went on, "Aza… azaza… y'remember my prom date?"

"I remember that you didn't know her name then _either_."

"'S always on the tip of my tongue. Anyway, she tells me when a show's coming on, like tonight for example. An' I ain't gotta do nothing."

"Why does she keep doing thing for you?" Edgar asked, searching for a parking spot now. He sounded genuinely curious.

Jimmy shrugged. It was probably because she was fucked up and fucked up girls have a thing for guys who are even worse fucked up than them, which narrows down the selection pool just enough to give Jimmy a clear shot, but he didn't particularly want to tell Edgar _that_.

"Fuck knows why chicks do anything?"

Edgar hmmmed in a sort of half-agreement. The Volvo swung into the last parking spot before the highway cut through town, and they came to a perfect stop in the dead center of the space, and the headlights threw twin circles of yellow across the worn bricks in front of them.

Jimmy let himself out.

"Okay," he said, running a hand through his heavily gelled hair, "tonight, we're fucking."

Edgar popped up over the roof of the Volvo, gobsmacked. "Wait, I didn't know that's what I was agreeing to!"

"Chill, Edgar-man. I _meant,_ when we go in there I'm like your boyfriend. Fake boyfriend. Just for the next couple hours."

The teacher gave him a radioactively suspicious look, which buzzed in the air between them like something lethal. "Why?"

Jimmy shrugged again. _Because I want you to? Because I want to see what it feels like? Because I don't know how many more chances I'll get? Because if I see you flirting with anyone inside, I'll probably end up charged with attempted murder?_

"'S really for your own protection," he replied. "They're like vultures for new blood in there—you ain't attached, they'll pick your organs out one by one, startin' with your heart an' movin' on to your dick."

"Vultures only eat old meat," Edgar pointed out, looking doubtful again. He glanced down at himself—the pair of jeans left from when he was a little younger and a little skinnier that clung to the lines of his legs like nothing else he owned; the black t-shirt that was actually Jimmy's, that stretched thin over the older man's healthier frame—and frowned. "Why did you dress me like this? It's… it's unflattering. It might give someone the wrong idea."

"The _hell_," Jimmy snorted. He sashayed closer, placing newly painted fingers over the folds of cotton at Edgar's waist, and soft heat pressed up into the pads. Slowly, lightly, he ran a hand down the line of the jeans, tracing down the thick seam that outlined hip and thigh. Skin skidded over bumps and thread and covered skin.

"Y'look _good_," he insisted, leaning in. "Good enough to… eat."

"Uh."

When Jimmy pulled back, Edgar was looking at him with this deer-in-the-headlights-anxiety look of sheer mystification. His throat twitched as he swallowed. On a street somewhere close, cars rushed by and filled the air with faint noises of speed—above them, the moon was settled on the shoulders of the city sky-line, almost full. Nearly set or barely risen Jimmy did not know.

Edgar coughed, and shattered something that Jimmy had only dimly comprehended.

"Am I _sure_ I want to go in there?" he asked, tugging on the bottom of his borrowed shirt.

"Trust me," Jimmy answered, sighing a little despite himself, "you're gonna see a whole lot worse inside. That shit is _conservative_."

-X-

The band was BabyKiller, and they were, as Edgar described, "screechy". Although he said it like it was a _bad_ thing.

The teen and the twenty-eight-year-old entered the club side by side, and Jimmy glanced aside just long enough to watch the red and blue siren-lights flash across Edgar's profile, playing a heaven-hell spectrum across his carefully blank face. The band was up on the stage playing something fast and loud. Judging from the state of the moshpit—right now, more like the shore of an ocean than the usual swimming pool in a hurricane—they were only a few songs into the first set. Huh. He'd been hoping to get here a little later.

"What do I _do_?" Edgar demanded, leaning closer to get his voice past the wall of sound that had shot up between them.

Christ, like he'd never been out to a show before? Jimmy looked around the room, which they were in the center of, and up towards the loft full of tables and down towards the bar, and shrugged.

"Get a drink," he suggested, jerking a thumb towards the oddly lit bar. "Grab a table. Join the mosh. Or…"

He twisted his fingers through the belt loops at either side of Edgar's waist, familiar gesture, and yanked hard enough to send the older man stumbling forward against him.

"Or y'could show off your handsomely fucked-up fake boyfriend an' make all the goth ladies jealous."

"You're just _so_ pleased with yourself," Edgar muttered, hands resting where they had landed over either end of the younger man's collar bone. Their heaviness made his veins jitter, and his lungs clenched up.

God, he lived for moments like this.

"Always am," Jimmy replied, pressing closer.

"You're seriously invading my personal space," Edgar informed him, shifting slightly—only so _slightly—_closer.

"Yeah?" the former-student retorted. He felt fingers tighten over his shoulders, just barely, the twitch of unconscious muscles, but even that little motion echoed out through his skin like thunder. "Whatcha gonna do about it?"

Edgar smiled—smirked even—and for the beat of a second, looked past Jimmy like he was seeing through him.

"Run," he answered, and disappeared into the crowd.

-X-

Cleo was not pleasant company. She had the sense of humor of a garden snake, her perfume smelled like poorly aged plants, and once Jimmy had tried to convince her to sleep with him, only to find that she was stone-cold sober as well as a huge bitch. She'd never let him live it down.

"Well well well," she said, in a voice like a science fiction droid, "if it isn't The Darkness, looming solo once again."

Jimmy tightened a fist and imagined what it would look like embedded into her shiny black lips.

"Here with someone, _actually_," he told her, teeth gritted.

They were hovering over a table on the loft level, and while the red and blue lights exploded behind them the other members of the table looked back and forth, trying to decide which side to join. He recognized them, vaguely, but they were just background material behind the Bitch Who Got Away. He didn't want their backup anyhow. He could do _fine_ for himself.

"Oh, you finally chalked up the money for a hooker?" Cleo asked, blowing out a cloud of smoke with the last word. "A woman of the _Night,_ how _appropriate."_

"Nah, _you_ turned me off of hookers for good."

They glared at each other for a moment.

"Well who is she?" Cleo demanded, at last, stubbing out her clove cigarette on the tabletop. "I'm just _dying_ to meet the girl who came here with _you._ Have you gotten her tested, by the way? You have to be careful with those loose girls, you know."

"I'm here with a _man_," Jimmy told her, teeth gritted. His nails were starting to slice holes in his hands.

The woman blinked, which was sort of interesting because he'd assumed that his reputation preceded him, but maybe not, maybe the guys he'd slept with had decided to keep it to themselves. He'd never bothered to check in with them about it.

"Hu_well_," she replied, a weird sort of faux-literate tick. "How about that. The female of the species prove a little _too _deadly for your taste, Darkness?"

Jimmy felt his lip curl back over his teeth against his will—_oh_, _you don't even know the half of it_.

"As a matter'a _fact_," he growled, leaning forward, "Edgar is fuckin' _insane _in bed an' he's a goddamn genius an' he's twice as fucking sophisticated as you've even _pretended_ to be, so screw you very _much_!"

"Ooh, touchy. Isn't that sweet. That's sweet, isn't it Anne?"

A second woman still sitting, with a cigarette of her own clenched between her teeth, gave them both a blatantly appraising look.

"Yeah," she said finally, plucking the cigarette out with two bony fingers. "Tell you what, Darkness: bring your boyfriend up here to see us. Introduce us. I'm sure it'll be… _interesting_."

Jimmy was about to retort with a _not on your life, bitch,_ when he caught the sound of his name—his actual name, not his club moniker—shouted from somewhere behind him, and everything went to shit.

"Jimmy," Edgar was yelling, shoving his way across the loft, "Jimmy! You've got to come down here and see the bar, they've got these drinks made with _vodka_ and _redbull_ and I can't even—Oh. Hi. Am I interrupting something?"

Jimmy looked back and forth between his teacher-boyfriend and his peer-nemesis and honestly couldn't remember how to formulate words. He knew it had something to do with opening your mouth, he was pretty sure it did, so he tried that, at least.

In the mean time, Edgar sort of stood there awkwardly, in his borrowed T-shirt and his unusually tight jeans, clearly trying to decide if he wanted to make eye contact with the rest of the table now staring him down like a pack of wolves evaluating a lone moose. He was dead.

Oh, shit shit shit. That moose was going down.

"Hello," Cleo started, apparently taking up the lead. "You must be _Jimmy'_s boyfriend. It's such a _pleasure_ to meet you. I'm Cleopatra, and your name is…?"

"Edgar."

Jimmy took two steps back, slowly, trying not to draw attention to himself just yet. He couldn't run, because that would mean leaving Edgar alone and defenseless or taking Edgar with him and totally opening them both up to reputation-corroding gossip, and he couldn't fight back just yet or risk getting permanently labeled as "touchy". He was stuck praying that Edgar could manage to field questions long enough to make Jimmy look nonchalant.

"Edgar… Edgar Allan Poe?" the woman in the corset asked, a little taken-aback.

And then the older man did something that kind of honestly blew Jimmy's mind. He shrugged. In the middle of a club where he knew exactly one person, had no prior knowledge of the culture, and felt obviously _painfully _out of place, he shrugged.

And it was _cool_.

Cleo was less impressed, though, most likely because she had no idea who Edgar was.

"Megadouche?" she inquired.

"_Excuse_ me?"

"Your shirt," she said, lowering black eyelids. "It's a Megadouche shirt. Are you a fan?"

Edgar looked at her, inscrutable. "It's an old shirt," he said.

"I remember when Megadouche was underground," one of the other table-members complained. "Now it's popular. It totally sucks."

"I know, right?" another one replied, this one male, judging by the voice. "Did you hear their cover of Disco Inferno on the college _radio station_? I threw away all my CDs. Honestly. How could they let themselves be _commercialized_ like that?"

Edgar was watching them now with something bordering on scientific fascination, visibly referencing and re-referencing in the massive library that served as his brain. Or at least, Jimmy thought it was visible. Cleo didn't seem to be caching on.

"It's true," the older man posited, "that certain things of artistic merit derive their merit from the rarity of their acknowledgement, and to take away that scarcity is to rob it of value. In certain cases of meta-valuing, the art work only justifies consideration in relativity to its reputation among a culture, and when that reputation is shifted outside of that group it ceases to be a worthwhile reflection of their philosophy."

The table looked at him. _Jimmy_ looked at him. There was silence, and Edgar sort of shrugged again.

Anne broke the silence.

"Yeah," she said, taking a drag on her cigarette, "that's the whole point isn't it? I've been trying to tell these guys the same thing for years."

Edgar nodded vaguely. "It's difficult to articulate that sort of thing in layman's terms."

"Oh, tell me about it," she replied, rolling dirt-brown eyes. "I'm always having to dumb myself down for the masses. Nobody ever knows what I'm trying to say. No one _understands_, you know? It's such a trial, living in this uncouth world, surrounded by laymen every day."

And then the whole table was jumping in, lamenting the lack of understanding in the world as they piled narrative on top of narrative like heaps of junk stacking up on a street corner.

Cleo refrained.

"I didn't realize you liked the _intellectual_ types, Darkness," she purred, stepping away from the ring of ranting patrons. "Edgar, you know, your boyfriend has _quite _the reputation in these circles. But I wouldn't expect you to know."

"Oh?" the teacher replied, brows flying up. "What kind of reputation?"

"Well, you know how _his_ people are," she said, stepping closer, inching in between Edgar and Jimmy. "Punching each other's brains out, hiring strippers… _Plebeians_."

Edgar shot him a look like, _really, strippers?_

"You seem to share a taste in music," Edgar pointed out, looking pointedly towards the stage where the lead singer of Babykiller was undoing the pants of another band member who may or may not have been female.

Cleo scowled. "Even savages have occasional accidents of good taste."

"And I'm sure that you'll forgive me for pointing out that 'savages' is not only an extremely relative term, but also carries quite a lot of baggage from the countless hick white people who used it before you."

The woman in the pleather dress narrowed her eyes, and shot a darker look aside to Jimmy.

"He's not just a _bit_ more intellectual than your usual fare," she noted, all traces of lightheartedness evaporated like so much water. "He talks like my English professor."

And Jimmy went cold, because if she was bringing up her daylight life, classes and everything, then shit was about to get _serious_.

"How did _Jimmy_ here bag you?" she demanded, moving so that the younger man stood on the outside, looking over her shoulder. "His death-poetry is a dime-a-dozen and he only fucks girls twice as drunk as him. Don't tell me you fell for all that machismo punk-ass _shit_."

Edgar blinked at her, looking a little startled. He glanced over her shoulder at Jimmy, but Jimmy didn't know what the hell to tell him and settled for covering his face with his hands so at least he wouldn't have to _see_ it. Motherfucking hell, how had he _not_ expected this?

"I… enjoy his company."

Jimmy peeked a little bit.

Edgar had shoved his hands into his pockets and he was looking somewhere vaguely leftwards. "It's none of your business, though, actually. I don't see why you care what kind of person he might have entered into a relationship with."

"He's a _poser_," Cleo hissed, "his daddy's a fucking millionaire and he comes in here with his ripped jeans and his _look at me I'm so messed up_ attitude and he talks about how unfair the world is and it's _all a show!_ I know, Jimmy, I _know!"_

That last bit of wit was directed over her shoulder, and Jimmy quickly hid his hands behind his back.

Edgar regarded the goth woman in front of him carefully. The lead singer on the stage below them hit a note that most sopranos would be envious of.

"Has it occurred to you," he said at last, peering over glasses in a way that hundreds of teenagers had learned to fear, "that the rich can do horrible things to each other just as easily, if not more easily, than the poor?"

Cleo had her brows knitted up like yarn and her lips twisted up in knots, and Jimmy knew that it would only be a matter of time before she came back with something to slice the legs out from under his reluctant date. He took a quick glance at the table behind them—absorbed, down to the last rattling skull. Okay. It had been long enough.

The teen knocked his adversary out of the way, sending her tottering on her six inch heels and hopefully falling provided he'd thrown his weight right, all hundred thirty pounds of it. Maybe she'd break her face. He'd like that.

"C'mon Edgar," he said, grabbing the older man's hand. "Let's ditch this bitch."

Edgar glared at him and shook off his hand. "That was a hugely dickish thing to do," he muttered, crouching down. On the floor, Cleo was sprawled staring cross-eyed up at the curl on her forehead that had come suddenly uncurled with the force of landing. Edgar offered her a hand up.

She ignored him.

After an awkward moment, Edgar finally allowed himself to be dragged away, towards the stairs and down off the loft, away from the top five reasons why Jimmy never came to this club on normal nights.

"I can't believe you did that," Edgar seethed, shoving his hands into his pockets with such force that they actually sank all the way in, despite the shortage of fabric. "Did you see the shoes she was wearing? You could have _broken_ something."

Jimmy shrugged. "So one less bitch clogging up the scene. Maybe I'd come dancin' while she was in the hospital."

The older man stopped in the middle of the stair and whirled, grabbing his former student by the forearms. Fingers pressed down a bit too hard, leaving the beginings of bruises, and Jimmy fought to look him in the eye.

"Listen here, Euridge," Edgar said, shaking him a little, "I've watched you steal beer and get in fights and jaywalk and every kind of illegal stupidity under the sun, and I'll keep on that way because it's your choice and I can't make if for you. But if I ever, _ever_ see you hurt an unarmed person again, I will walk right out the door and you'll never see me again."

Jimmy blinked at him. He was still fighting to keep up eye contact, flinching away from the iron behind Edgar's irises. On an inexplicable level, it burned him.

And then he smiled.

"Really?" he asked, shaking his head. "_Really_? That's where you want to draw the line? Man, you know I love you like I love fuckin'… breathin' or some shit. Coulda drawn the line anywhere y'damn well wanted."

Edgar remained resolute. "_This_ is where I'm drawing it."

Despite the look on Edgar's face, Jimmy started laughing. "This," he said, the words breaking through the barrier of his teeth like an army racing down a mountain, "is why I love you, man. _This_. 'Cause you care about shit, even when I don't, an' it kinda makes me care too, an' it's weird and it's _cool,_ an' it makes me think you might care about me too."

People pushed on their shoulders, muttering and shoving their way up and down the stairs, but Jimmy really couldn't have given less of a shit if he'd also been high on vicodin at the time, which he honestly kind of felt like he was. God damn. He had _words_.

Edgar was looking kind of shocked and kind of flattered, and Jimmy wanted to snatch it up and laminate it because it was just so _Edgar_ and it made him want to—oh, fuck it, he was never any good at restraining himself anyways.

In the flash of a second, he had the older man tight by his light brown hands and they were tripping down the stairs, swinging around the bottom of the banister and up against the wall at the base of the loft, and Jimmy kissed him like Edgar had kissed _him_ once before, months ago, in the shadowy hallway of an office as twenty students stumbled unwittingly away from the scene of the crime. But this time, Jimmy had his hands around Edgar's wrists—Christ, he was sure he could feel blood pumping through the veins—and the air around them was full of smoke and drumbeats and a hundred conversations that had nothing to do with them.

And Edgar kissed back. God only knew what was going through his head, what he was telling himself, what he was thinking about them, but he was kissing back and Jimmy clung to the knowledge that if Edgar's teeth were tugging on his lower lip like that, right now, then he must have done _something_ right—somewhere, finally, he must have gotten something right.

Edgar was the first to pull away, turning his head to the side, flexing hands still pinned to the wall.

"Er," he started, looking determinedly at the other end of the room, "we're in public. And I've only had three shots. In good conscience I can't let this go on."

The younger man gave him a decidedly unimpressed look. "Seriously? We're on a fake date in a club with a band that—y'notice—seems to think blowjobs are a kinda drum solo, an' you're worried about kissin' me in fronta some jerks who don't even know us?"

"That's not your most convincing argument," Edgar observed, tugging experimentally at the hands around his wrists. "And I really, really need another drink."

Jimmy pursed his lips and considered. "Well… there's a friend of mine at the bar… Could introduce you…"

"As long as I get a drink out of it," Edgar retorted, obstinate, "and you don't introduce me as _the guy you're fucking_, I don't even care."

"Could tell him you're my teacher…"

"Oh, don't you _even_ think about it."

The teen drew back, and they the took their first steps onto the harrowing journey in search of booze.

Jimmy nudged his friend in the ribs. "An' then we're dancin'. I'm gonna teach you how. It's gonna be awesome."

"I don't dance, Jimmy."

The younger man smiled, feeling a weird lightness in the tips of his fingers. "Seem to recall y'told me that once before."

-x-

They stumbled back to Edgar's apartment at three or so in the morning, tossing some cash through the window at their irritated taxi driver. Jimmy was fairly certain that it was the two false stops and not the ten minutes of him attempting to crawl all over Edgar that had their driver seething in the front seat, but between the alcohol buzz and the laughter, he was having trouble convincing his friend of that.

Edgar made a noise as he fumbled with his keys. "It really… really probably isn't good… how we always end up drunk like this…"

Jimmy hooked an arm over the top of the older man's shoulder, leaning across his back. "Kin'I have your liver?"

It was kind of startling to hear Edgar giggle—it didn't exactly suit him. "You don't want mine… it's all, all… alcoholy."

They crashed more than stepped into the apartment, boots tripping over sneakers, and Jimmy knocked over the bible still propped up on the arm of the couch as he fell back into the safety of the cushions.

He was totally pleased with tonight. Even the inevitable mother of all headaches was worth it, worth the kiss and the memory of skin and watching Edgar flail on the dance floor like a drunken Mick Jagger. He was going to remember—remember _everything_—tomorrow, down to the last stupid detail of Edgar requesting _Somebody to Love_ from the band, louder than the rest of the audience combined.

The air conditioner ground on while Jimmy spared a moment of reflection to be glad that his old friend Cory had been fatally stabbed last month—would have put a damper on the whole evening, him being alive, what with his favorite sport having been Steal the Other Guy's Date.

Edgar was sitting on the floor now, scrubbing at the telephone number that some acne-faced Goth girl had scribbled on his hand just before the second set. There were papers on the coffee table behind him, and the photograph of young Edgar and the nameless chick sitting exactly where Jimmy had left it.

"Sooo," Jimmy said, "what were y'all downish 'bout earlier?"

"Got a letter. Disappointed." The older man squinted up at him. "I… uh, Jimmy, you think you could… could take care of yourself? For like, a couple weeks? Without me?"

Jimmy snorted. "Whaddaya think I am, some kinda baby?"

"_I_ think," Edgar said, pointing one slightly wobbly finger, "you're kinda dumb sometimes."

Jimmy was trying to rummage up an impressive retort when Edgar's voice cracked open again.

"…But you're not stupid," the older man finished.

And that was that.

TBC


	19. Reckoning

_Reckoning_

I know I am literally the worst ever and this is nearly a year late oh my god how did that even happen? But I love you and I'm sorry please forgive me. There was supposed to be an arc in here about Edgar going out of town to do some church work, but I've dropped it because seriously, if it cost me a year of trying to get through obviously it wasn't that great.

So here's part one of the ending. Thank god for closure.

* * *

Typical summer morning.

Edgar wakes up. The ceiling is a very uninteresting shade of white, but he dutifully stares at it for approximately four minutes while the surrealist swirl of dream images subsides into a fuzzy sense of _otherness_. Something woke him up—oh, it was that damn bird again, wasn't it?

He spends another couple minutes silently apologizing to the bird, which really hadn't done anything terrible from an objective point of view. It didn't know he was sleeping in here.

Sense of guilt appeased, he pulls on a button up shirt, and promptly gives up on buttoning it. He'll… he'll just take care of that later, when his head isn't dully throbbing and his fingers are properly warmed up. He knew he shouldn't have had that tenth shot.

He grabs his glasses and tries not to squint too much at the sunlight pouring in his window.

The bathroom is just on the other side of the wall, thank god, because he needs water like a stranded fish. His mouth has that vaguely molded feeling you get when you fall asleep with brandy on your tongue. Halfway into a second glass of water, he catches his reflection's half-lidded, fuzzy eye and grimaces—his hair looks like mad science mistook him for an experiment and the need for a shave is getting embarrassingly obvious. Yes. Fantastic.

He mishandles the comb to such an astounding extent that he's actually afraid to try shaving, so, yes, he'll just deal with that at the same time he tackles the buttons. Also pants. He realizes belatedly that he hasn't actually put on any pants. To attempt, or not to attempt? Visions of concussing himself in the process successfully scare him out of that one too. The boxers he's wearing are… well, they're passable. There's nothing wrong with them, aside from not being pants.

He kicks his way down the hall, shoves a ratty black backpack out of his path with a poorly coordinated foot—Jimmy left it here again, he really needs to stop doing that—and trips into the kitchen. He needs tea. He needs _coffee_, but he doesn't have a coffee maker so he'll have to make due. Jimmy's shirt is still lying on the kitchen table and he tries to fold it before giving up on that endeavor too. The vodka is in the fridge and the orange juice is in the freezer, and what? What is his old photography class album doing in the microwave? Did—did Jimmy fill it with _porn?_ Really?

While the kettle is starting up, he pours himself a mug of water, ice cold and crystal clear and straight from the fridge. He smiles at it. Idly, he shuffles into the living room, bare feet toeing away an abandoned pair of shorts—_really now_—and when he reaches the couch, he tips the mug of water sideways, draining its frigid contents onto the faintly snoring head of his guest.

"_Ohwhathefuckinchristwhat!"_

Jimmy claws at the liquid seeping through his flattened hair, and Edgar grins down at him, gesturing vaguely with the mug still in his hand.

"That's for the porn," he says, and turns back around to revisit the kitchen. "Now, brush your teeth and I'll make us… bagels, I guess. My head hurts too much for anything fancy."

Jimmy just moans at him, shoulder blades working underneath his skin as he throws his hands over his face. Edgar's probably going to have to drag him off the couch eventually, but if he recalls correctly, Jimmy matched him nearly drink for drink last night and, honestly, the poor kid probably needs a few extra minutes. At least long enough to get some bagels toasted, and maybe get their used shot glasses off the table.

And in the sunlit kitchen with his dully aching head, Edgar doesn't even bother to worry about what an utter wreck he looks this morning.

Well. Not too much.

-x-

Time is an ant's word for the traffic on a highway. A year can take a lifetime. A day can last a year. A week can bloom and fade in the space of a minute. Entire worlds can live and die in the space of a few hours, and the person you were can be born and be killed in the course of a few months. Time is relative.

Solomon Grundy was born on a Monday…

-x-

Edgar got the call in the first week of August, while he was stirring something that could be generously labeled "oriental" if the addition of rice and sweet sauce could qualify it as such.

They—he hardly needed to qualify "they" after two months of sun-bright summer, and the hours spent in this kitchen, together—had been discussing some movie that Jimmy wanted to see that night, and how Edgar had a church function sorry, he does have responsibilities. Edgar had dropped the spoon, tossing out an incredulous comment over his shoulder, and fumbled for the phone with the one hand that wasn't covered in stinging condensation.

"Hello," he said, making a quick shushing motion towards his dinner guest, "Edgar Vargas speaking."

"_Hello Mr. Vargas. This is Cindy Patel from the school board. Can you spare a moment?"_

The teacher frowned, twisting the loops of the phone cord with his free hand. He had a bad feeling.

"Sure. Well, I have dinner on, but a moment I can spare."

Over a battered issue of National Geographic, Jimmy glared at him. They weren't supposed to take calls when they were hanging out together—it was Edgar's rule, and he felt like a bit of a jerk for turning around and ignoring the kid now, but that nasty churning in his gut told him that this was important.

"_Are you aware of the accusations against you, Mr. Vargas?"_

His stomach plummeted like a broken parachute. "No?"

_"We'd like you to come in and speak with our investigator. If you could put aside a day this week, we would appreciate you speedily putting this whole affair to rest."_

"What affair?" Edgar pressed. Of course he knew, but, he also knew better than to admit that.

"_Well."_ The woman's voice paused, like a storm gathering in the horizon. "_That's _just_ the question, isn't it? Come by Tuesday. We'll have a talk."_

"Um. Alright?"

"_Have a good day, Mr. Vargas."_

And Edgar was left staring dully at the phone.

The next thing he knew, a set of pale hands were tugging the plastic harbinger of doom out of his grip and dropping it haphazardly onto the counter. Jimmy squinted at him, dark eyes searching for an answer he could already tell he wouldn't like.

"What was that?" the younger man demanded, flicking his gaze for a moment back at the cellular. "Please tell me that wasn't what it sounded like."

"It might not have been," Edgar allowed, breath coming just a little too shallow, "but I sincerely doubt it."

-X-

So here was the thing. Edgar had been called out of town to do some church work about a month before. Jimmy had come after him. Edgar had been specifically told not to bring anyone along—the letter had been very specific on that point. And Edgar had thought, well, it's summer and I'll only be gone a couple weeks, what's the worst that can happen really, Jimmy can keep himself occupied.

He got less than a week of work in before Jimmy showed up on the doorstep, backpack full of poptarts and lockpicks, asking what the hell Edgar had meant by leaving him behind in the goddamn city without so much as a forwarding address what a fucking douchebag move right there and are you gonna invite me in or not?

What Edgar had learned from this debacle was, simply put, Jimmy was going to be involved in his life whether he liked it or not, so he had better just fill the kid in from the start and avoid embarrassing encounters down the way.

Turned out, having somebody on your side was more pleasant that Edgar had expected.

-x-

Jimmy paced the floor, hobnailed boots—new, Edgar thought—kicking across the patched carpet. Here and there, he'd pause to kick some knickknack that had tumbled to the floor the previous night when he'd thrown himself bodily at Edgar for—huh, what had that been for?

"I don't get it," the teenager was saying, "I thought you an' that lady… Fisher, I thought you guys shut down the file on this. Isn't there a… a wheel of fortune thing?"

"You mean double jeopardy."

"Whatever, man. I'm just sayin', they can't open this up now, not after you got it all dismissed already. There's gotta be laws."

Edgar propped his cheek up in his hand, shoulder sinking into the poorly stuffed couch cushions. "It wasn't _legal_, Jimmy. It was an informal complaint within the academy's internal regulation. There's no such thing as double jeopardy there. The district never even saw this. I'm not sure how they _got_ this information in the..." He paused. Something nasty clicked into place. "Oh god. Roberts. Roberts tipped them off."

"Forget Roberts, he'll get his later. Since when do these state fucks even have jurisdiction? The Academy is _private_."

"There's a law on the books in this state—"

"It wouldn't even count as statutory!"

"It's still illegal, as long as I'm in a position of authority. Technically, you could legally seduce the janitor, just not your psychology teacher."

"Bullshit! I'm old enough to fuck whoever I want!"

"It's to—it's a preventative against powerful people pressuring you into sex, it's supposed to keep you safe."

"Oh, right," Jimmy snarled, heels digging into the carpet, "_now_ the law wants to keep me safe, like they gave a flying fuck—"

Edgar winced. "Do you want to talk about that?"

"No I don't want to fucking talk about that!"

"Well then calm down, you're not doing anybody any good pacing like that. Look, I'll just tell them the truth, just like you told Roberts. Like you're always saying, there's no rule against kissing. And that's only happened a handful of times anyhow."

"Oh yeah, like they'll believe that. You know better, Edgar. Who's gonna believe a twenty-eight-year-old suspected fag turned down free sex?"

"_Suspected_— well, Angela believed us."

"Angela knows you, man. The investigator don't know your ass from Adam. Fuck. I'm gonna _kill_ that complaint-filin' asswipe. You can help. You get that fryin' pan'a yours—"

"Skillet, Jimmy. It's a skillet. And that's a terrible idea."

"Dead men don't file paperwork," his student replied, darkly.

Edgar sighed. It was taking a lot of effort to remain the calm one, and the strain was quietly wearing him down at the seams. This was a tossup, a game of Russian roulette where, for all he knew, life might have loaded a full set of rounds into the chambers. Maybe he should have seen this coming? After all, the last year had been such almost surreally smooth sailing otherwise, it was only a matter of time until his traditional bad luck reared its grinning head again.

Jimmy threw himself at the ground between Edgar's feet, flinty eyes and tight lips and stiff hands clutching at hands. "Run away with me," he said.

_What?_

The older man squinted down at him, incredulous. "Are you—did you seriously just say that?"

Jimmy pulled a face and elbowed him in the stomach. "_Yes_ I fuckin' said that, what's wrong with it?"

"It's just…" Edgar smothered a desperate grin. "It doesn't really sound the same without the traditional acoustic guitar sound track. Also it needs to be raining."

"Hey, hey, guess what? Fuck you. I retract my offer."

Fighting down laughter, Edgar grabbed the younger man's shoulders as he tried to get up and stomp away. The rolled up edges of a mutilated t-shirt flattered under his hands.

"No, no," he insisted, "really, I—ha—no, where do you want to run away to? I hear Aruba's nice this time of year."

"Stow it," Jimmy grumbled, despite the fact that he was settling his bent arms over the tops of Edgar's thighs. "We don't have to go anywhere. We could just _go_. Hit the road, drive till this whole thing blows over. I'll do odd jobs when we pass through towns so we can stay in motels, you can drive, we'll head down to Mexico an' try not to get ourselves killed—well, we'll try not to get _you_ killed, I'll brush up on my Spanish—"

Edgar shook his head, but he was smiling. His chest had this soft, thick sensation, like he'd been stuffed with blue cotton.

"I'm not running away," he answered. "You know that won't solve anything. Someday, I'd want to come back and teach again, and you'd want to have a life, and anyways, you're terrible at making money. You can barely afford your rent."

"But we could—"

Edgar leaned down and pressed his smile into Jimmy's lips.

"Believe me," he said into Jimmy's skin, eyes closed, "there's nobody I'd rather run away with. But let's see this through."

Tension, and then nothing, like all the seething indignation in the younger man's skinny form had loosened and crumbled in one heavy sigh.

"Trust me," Edgar added, pulling back slightly, "They'll believe us."

-x-

"We don't believe you."

Edgar gaped over the top of the faux-wooden desk with its nineteen-fifties table lamp. "What do you _mean_ you don't believe me?" he demanded.

The investigator on his left blinked his beady eyes. "Well, you see, it's not that we have anything against your general credibility…"

"But," continued the investigator on his right, twitchy fingers tapping the table, "considering someone of your particular _tastes, _we find it improbable that you could have spent the better part of a year in close contact with an obviously interested party and never conducted a proper _liaison_, so to say."

"Improbable how, exa—_my particular tastes? _What tastes!_"_

The investigators glanced at each other. "Well," said the first, "to put it indelicately, your homosexuality."

Edgar made futile mouth flaps for the better part of a minute. "I am not," he finally managed, "gay."

The second investigator tapped the table in something resembling the beat of _La Cucaracha._ "Maybe I'm mistaken, but I believe you just admitted to kissing Mr. Euridge once—"

"Twice."

"Three times, actually," Edgar corrected, dutifully.

"Yes, right," the first investigator replied, eyebrows lifted meaningfully. "Are you telling me those incidents were perpetrated against your will?"

"Well, no—"

"Then you _admit_ to having unresolved sexual tension," The second investigator observed.

"And in our field of experience," the first added, "it rarely stays unresolved for long."

Edgar dropped his head into his hands. "But you can't _prove_ it," he moaned, voice muffled by his palms.

"We don't have to," the beady-eyed investigator assured him. "We've got a _better safe than sorry_ policy we can file under with probable cause."

"Preventative measures and all that."

"This is _heinously_ unethical," the teacher insisted, looking up again. He could feel his face hardening, eyes narrowing against his will, and he would _not_ lose his temper. "You can ruin _lives_ with one misplaced statistic."

The investigators shrugged in unison.

"Government grants not being what they used to be—"

"—It's much cheaper this way."

Christ, government-funded bureaucracy was going to do horrific X-rated things to his career and they couldn't even afford to expend some cash on the whole affair? Where did all the sensible planners in the world go? Was Edgar the only sane person left alive in this town?

"They shouldn't even have you people around in the first place then," he muttered. "Your budget could be out saving kittens or buying text books."

The second investigator reached across the table and patted him on the hand. "Could be worse," he said. "At least it won't be legally documented. That ought to keep you out of the sexual offender listings for another couple of years, provided you avoid the California school system all together."

He winked. He _winked._

"Right," said the first, "we'll just shadily rework some documents and have you let go from the system. And that'll set us all right up."

"Of course, the schools in this district will have to be notified…"

"Nothing too damaging, of course, we specialize in delicacy—"

"In fact, we recently switched the letters from red print to blue, much more subtle—"

The lamp wobbled dangerously as Edgar jumped to his feet, the chair crashing across the floor in a splintery tumble. He slammed his hands into the tabletop.

"You can't _do_ this!" he shouted. "I haven't done anything wrong! This doesn't make any sense!"

He had half expected them to back up, or call a bailiff from the shadowy depths of the hall outside, or at least tell him to sit down because that's how people react to hostile interviewees, but no. They just shrugged and reached for their paperwork.

"But the thing is," the tapping one answered, at length, "we can, and we are. Sorry about that."

"It's nothing personal," his companion added, like it was really no big deal and all this getting worked up about it was a bit silly. Like Edgar was silly for worrying about his rapidly crumbling future.

"Why are you even _doing _this?" Edgar demanded, voice half-hoarse.

The investigators gave him a dully amused look. "Well, we do have a quota to fill," the first replied.

"Can't lose that funding."

"No, definitely not."

The two of them stood up, in tandem, and stepped around the corners of the table to take him politely by both arms. They pulled him away, maneuvering neatly towards the door while Edgar blinked, uncomprehending.

"Try not to get too bent out of shape."

"After all, at least you got laid. Bob here hasn't gotten laid in…"

"A few years, Larry, not that it's any of your business."

They shepherded the teacher through the door and gave him an odd little half-salute before slamming it closed in his stunned face. The door stood there innocently in their wake while Edgar stared at it.

The thing swung back just an inch or so, and the second investigator peered out at him.

"If it makes you feel any better," the interrogator added, "I'm a big fan of _Will and Grace_ myself!"

-x-

The past year stretches out behind Edgar, the beginning of that fateful August somehow fuzzier and more lengthened with age than the July or June before it. A year really can span a lifetime of its own.

Somehow he never really believed that there would be consequences. Like driving at midnight with the headlights off, the danger is theoretical, something that won't happen to you. There's a buzzby, a close call a few miles from home and terror grabs you by the throat and makes your vision blurry, and you almost turn the lights back on but you _don't_, and the fear becomes a vaguery again as it slips off your back and pools around your feet.

And then you're hit.

-x-

There was parking lot at the mall where Jimmy's hoodlum trash friends liked to hang out. Getting into the Sears without passing them was nearly impossible. This had caused Edgar no shortage of grievance in past months—you go in for a set of cabinet knobs, you come out with a handful of catcalls and a near scrape with a massive Russian.

Edgar stepped out of his car and slammed the door behind him.

The core half-dozen were out today, like a murder of prickly, self-important crows under the oasis shade of a brick overhanging. Edgar stalked across the baking asphalt. The first of them fluttered up in a squawk when he kicked his way into their midst, the kid's absurd chain hung between a nose piercing and an earring swinging wildly.

"I'm fucked," the teacher announced, meeting Jimmy's bemused eyes across the circle. Snickering followed, but for once, Edgar couldn't care less. He'd reached zen levels of rage.

"Should I be jealous?" Jimmy asked, chin propped up on one fishnetted fist.

Edgar didn't smile. "Of the state bureaucratic system? Probably."

Jimmy's grin slipped off, and he swung to his feet in the space of a second. "I'll see ya later," he said, with a vague gesture towards the kid next to him—Chuey?—"Think I'll probably be out fuckin' up suits for the rest of the day."

Edgar opened a door for him, and they walked inside.

Silence walked between them like an uncomfortable stranger who would really rather not be the third wheel in this situation. Edgar seethed, and Jimmy scuffed the tile of the men's section floor with aimless soles. Two attendants tried to ask Edgar if he needed a hand, but thought better of it once they got a proper look at his expression. He imagined he probably looked like a thunderstorm in dress pants.

"This city is a pit of hellish incompetence," he said at last, nearly knocking over a mannequin as he rounded a corner too sharply.

"They didn't believe you," Jimmy guessed sourly.

"They have a _quota_," Edgar hissed, hands twitching as he tried to keep them from forming fists. "I'll have to uproot myself and start from scratch in some public school half the continent away for the sake of a _quota_, and _that_ provided no one asks too many questions."

"You… you're not okay, are you?"

"No," Edgar replied, "not really."

The younger man paused, and then he settled himself down on a display of t-shirts, chains clinking.

"This is really dumb," he said quietly, mouth twisted into a contemplative scowl. "Like, this is beyond the level of dumb that exists in any logical reality. You're a nice, normal guy. Shit like this doesn't happen to you. Shouldn't."

Edgar scoffed, a little. "Jimmy, you have but known me for a small portion of my greater life. I am an unlucky bastard. If anything, I should have seen this coming a mile away—god I am so _stupid_, I've got the pattern recognition skills of a _toddler_, why did I think this was going to end any better than anything else I've put myself through? I just—ugh."

He sat down on the floor in the middle of the men's clothing department and refused to give a single fuck what anyone thought of him.

"So," he went on, after a while of pressing his face into his hands, "what are my options? Go quietly, try to sue, quit teaching period and get an office job, drink myself into a coma and let the insurance take care of me—"

"Don't forget murder," Jimmy added, uneasily. "Murder is always an option."

"Right," the older man laughed, and the laughter scraped his throat. "Yes. That would fix everything."

"No people no quota," Jimmy pointed out, and it almost sounded like he was seriously considering it, weighing the words on his tongue. Well, there was something a little satisfying about wishing the entire investigatory unit would keel over on the spot, but Edgar wasn't quite at the point where he could indulge that fantasy totally guilt free.

"I have to think," he murmured. Stress twisted his muscles into aching panes of irritation. "I can try to counterclaim. Surely there's a way to do that. All I have to do is get my hands on the official paperwork, get some people from the academy to vouch for me. This is the government, there's always a failsafe built in."

"Who ya gonna talk to?"

"Angela. Mrs. Jones. Your gym teacher. I just have to figure out who my allies are."

Jimmy gave him a strange, unreadable look, one that in all the months they'd known each other, Edgar had never seen before. It was soft.

"Alright." The look barely shifted. "You let me know what I can do, okay? You need a statement, you need somebody to break a motherfucker's legs? You let me know."

For the first time in hours, Edgar smiled. "I think this is something I'll have to do by myself, but thanks. It's good to have someone in my corner."

"Your corner? Oh hell no. This is _our _corner."

-x-

When something goes wrong, you're always looking for somebody to blame. Someone has to be at fault. And the odd thing about having a relatively healthy psyche is that you're loath to blame yourself, even if it really is—logically, rationally—mostly your fault. It hurts more. When you fold that resentment back on itself, it multiplies, like a reflection caught in a reflection blossoming an infinite set of mirror images into existence. Much easier to blame someone else. Blame someone else, and distance the anger, push it onto someone so remote and untouchable that it dulls from white hot fury into a cold fact.

Edgar chose, for his own sake, not take responsibility here. Not just for his sake, truthfully, because if it were his fault then it would be Jimmy's fault too, and he couldn't handle dealing with that many conflicting emotions at once.

He chose not to blame himself, and not to blame Jimmy—and in making that decision, realized that there must be something inherently fucked up in the system if it had driven him to this point.

It's a strange revelation.

Kind of a relief, actually.

-x-

Jimmy picked up on the second ring.

"Y'llo," he said, with the half-hearted slur of someone who's terribly busy doing something completely useless.

"My life is a black void," Edgar replied, with the fully-involved slur of someone who has gone to considerable lengths to get as smashed as they physically can. "Dark pit. Inescapable."

There was a pause on the other end. "Okay, if you're reading my shitty-ass poetry when you're wasted I'm not even sure I wanna ask what happened to your sense of irony."

"Punk bands're gonna write ballads about my fucking dark pit of a life," Edgar went on, like he hadn't heard a thing. Which wasn't wholly inaccurate; he wasn't processing very well at this stage in the game. "Cliche metaphors for... hope is a dangling thing. It's a noose. Hope is a noose."

"What the hell, man?" Jimmy demanded, and Edgar could almost hear him scowling, leaning against the wall in his tiny apartment. "This is weird. You're never this morbid when you're drunk."

"This one's kinda a specially occasion."

"Special _how?"_

Edgar wound his finger through the curled phone cord, trying to catch as many loops on one digit as possible. Difficult. Why was everything so difficult. "Tendered my god, god forsaken resignation today. Officially gave up on it. No coincidence here, nope, somebody up there wants me out. No way Angela'd get this. So, special occasion."

"Hey, Edgar, did you know you're achieving like a whopping zero on the sense-meter?"

"Sense can fuck itself. Everything can fuck itself. I am pissed as fuck."

"Yeah no kidding," Jimmy snorted. "An' I'm missing all the fun. What the hell happened today?"

"Reality bit me 'n it's got... bitey things. Stingers." Edgar looked across the room, at the stack of papers. God there had been so much crap in his desk; he hadn't even realized what was hiding under that bottom batch of last year's test papers. "Story of my life."

"Edgar…" the younger man's voice slipped, lost some of its snippy edge. "What actually happened? Seriously."

In the dim cubical of his kitchenette, Edgar swung out and kicked a cabinet hard enough to send a crack racing half-way down the wooden panel. "_Liability_, they said. Harry says keep his staff out of it, can't get a fuckworth 'f eye contact from one damn person. Well fuck them! How hard would it be to write a… write a fucking page! Sign a witless—witness statement! One day, I'm asking one day for the tota—totallity 'f my career an' they don't give a good god damn what happens to me 'cause I'm just another name on the payroll, never mind they hired me t' save _fucking lives_—"

"Dude, come on," Jimmy cut in, and maybe he sounded a little nervous, it was hard to tell. "Calm down man."

"No! I will… I will fucking _not_, calm down. Made me look like a fool, surprise idiot you don't have any friends, oh well sorry 'bout that I'll just pack my fucking _bags_. Right. Fuck that. If they wanna fire the only decent teacher on the gog—goddamn payroll, too bad 'cause I just quit! They're terrible, and they should, should feel terrible. We're dating."

"I, _whoa_—" the speakers on the phone crackled, trying to compensate for the massive burst of volume, "—hold up now. What the fuck did you just say?"

"Weee," Edgar repeated, "are dating. Screw them. You like me, I like you, my life is ruined, we're dating and fuck… whatsit. The police."

There was an extraordinary length of silence.

"Wow," Jimmy finally sighed, "you are amazingly drunk. I think you oughta start worrying about alcohol poisoning."

"We're dating," Edgar said, by way of counterargument. "Like, two… dating things. That dating. Are."

"Sure, Edgar man. Hold on, I'm comin' over. You're probably gonna get yourself killed in that condition."

"Uh." The suddenly-former teacher glanced around the room, considering the glowing stovetop and the pots spilling across the floor beside his feet. "Yeeaokay. Do that."

"Twenty minutes," Jimmy said, with an unusual thoughtful note in his voice. "On a scale from one to _Days of Our Lives_, exactly how much amnesia are you gonna have tomorrow morning?"

"No idea."

"So… we're dating for the next four hours. Cool. I think I can…. I mean, at least you want me when you're freakishly drunk? That's something."

"No no no no. No. We're dating for, like, forever. You'n me. I 'ficially give up being the good guy. Done. Pays jack shit."

"Whatever, Edgar. I'll be there in a minute."

"Love you."

"Jesus fucking Christ."

-x-

Sometimes Edgar had known that he was doing something kind of terrible with Jimmy. The kid just needed a friend, and instead of drawing the hard line where it belonged, Edgar kept letting the kid pinball all over both their feelings like something dangerously unstable and out of control. A pinball can do itself a lot of damage. He was being selfish, he knew that in his bones, but sometimes it was hard to tell if he was being selfish for clinging to the tattered idea of professional distance or for turning a blind eye while Jimmy ignored it. Whether it was worse that he let Jimmy do this, or that he didn't do it back.

Every minute their shuffling feet were obscuring the line in the sand just a little bit more.

It was nice to be wanted. It was nice to _want_.

And it had been terrifying.

-x-

Typical summer morning. Edgar woke up.

Edgar woke up on the couch, Edgar woke up with a ball of scribbly, writhing _pain_ elbowing the insides of his head. Edgar woke up drained, like someone had punctured a bladder somewhere inside of him and let all his festering emotions drain out. Edgar woke up first. Edgar woke up with an arm over Jimmy's shoulder, the two of them an ungainly heap lying arms and legs tangled and flopping over the cushion's edge.

He didn't move for a long time.

On a scale of one to _Day of our Lives,_ he was working on about a level five morning after amnesia. Not that bad, considering how absolutely out of control his alcohol consumption had gotten and, oh, now he was feeling an uncomfortable echo of fear for himself twelve hours ago. What if he had done himself some kind of real, lasting damage? Where had all his carefully measured control gone?

He ran a hand down Jimmy's arm, currently curled up against his torso in a way that would probably end with pain and numbness. His friend was a mess of greasy hair and ruined makeup and wrinkled laundry-day clothes. Obviously, he had left home in a hurry.

Edgar pressed his face against the back of Jimmy's head, too worn out to really give a good god damn about anything. There wasn't really any kind of epiphany. No lightbulbs, or choirs or angels, or wide-eyed eurekas. It wasn't like he hadn't already known.

Loving Jimmy was like breathing air.

It's not flashy, or dramatic, or optional. You don't even know you're doing it until you try to hold your breath.

-x-

When Jimmy woke up an hour later, Edgar was dragging the old chest full of his father's personal odds and ends into the living room. There had been a lot of things, decades old quality nicknacks that Edgar couldn't bring himself to give away. His family had never been much for collecting junk, and after his mother got sick they'd started to quietly clean out the shelves, without really understanding why. Garage sales, trash cans, donations to charity…

But these, his father had kept, and so Edgar had kept them after his father was gone.

"What're you doin'?" Jimmy mumbled, cracking one smudgy eye open.

"Going through some things," the older man replied, setting aside a delicate glass snowglobe. "Family heirlooms and… well whatever this is. It looks like a medieval torture device."

"…Why?"

Edgar looked up, said nothing for a little while. There was yellow sunlight, the kind of light that makes your eyes sting and your heart ache, and a quiet stillness in the air like they were sitting in the huge peaceful eye of a storm. Half of Jimmy's face was covered in random pressure lines from the seams in the upholstery, the other half with a couple red spots breaking out between the thin spatter of freckles. There were purple-black smears of oily eyeliner around his eyes because he was too lazy to wash his face last night.

And Edgar loved him like he'd never loved anyone in the world.

"I've decided," he said, at last, "that I don't really care what the world wants from me. Obviously, the world isn't going to do anything but kick me around, I might as well stop putting so much faith in it. It's starting to feel borderline abusive."

Edgar picked up his father's old compass, the size of a palm and the thickness of a hostess cake, and tossed it across the room. It landed in the crook of Jimmy's elbow.

"What's this?" the younger man asked, squinting down at it.

"That's going to be our new best friend," Edgar replied, and flicked a folded length of paper in the same direction. "That and that. I don't know where we're going, but eventually we're going to want to come back, or at least find the nearest large city, since I'm not sure I can go a whole week without eating a fully balanced meal."

Jimmy blinked at him, uncomprehending, and then sat bolt upright. "Wait wait wait, are you saying you, like you want to—"

"Jimmy Euridge," Edgar interrupted, "how would you like to run away with me?"

"Yes! Fuck yes!"

"I don't know how long we'll be gone, but we ought to get at least a couple weeks of traveling out of it. I'll do some praying while we're out there, we'll see if God doesn't just have some other kind of plans for me. It occurs, just now actually, that maybe I've been too focused on having my way. You've got to be open to miracles, after all."

"Fuck man, I dunno shit about any miracles but whatever gets you in that car is good with me."

Edgar smiled.

Maybe things would work out on their own, maybe he'd have to make them work out. Either way, he'd be alright. He had Jimmy, he had a map of the greater United States, and a car with twenty miles to gallon. Forget the world, forget psychotic bosses and bizarre government institutions and being a Respectable Member of the Community. He had this, and this would be good enough for now.

(TBC)


	20. Revivial

_Revival_

Did I ever tell you guys that this AU is actually what happens to Jimmy and Edgar's souls after EIPJ ends? No? Well. Surprise?

Here's my love to everyone, old friends and new, and I hope I'll see you all around somewhere in the mysterious future of our internet lives! Keep the Mmy/Edgar alive for me, man. We are the coolest of cats.

* * *

The sun isn't quite up.

This time of morning, the sky is white and backlit like a TV screen, saturated with light and energy. He supposes that it's just like him to compare nature to a television, but it's all he can think of. The atmosphere itself seems to glow.

They're lying in a field. It's cold outside now, especially where morning dew has seeped into his sweater and sunk its chilly fingers into his shoulders and neck, but as the sun rises he knows that it'll get warmer again. It's too early in the year and too far south for real cold. It's hardly halfway through October. Funny to think that on any other year he'd be dragging out his box of halloween decorations, putting up streamer for homecoming. But here he is instead.

He runs idle fingers across the ground, picking up bits of dead grass and freezing dew, and he wonders where the water comes from—is it rain? Does it fall? It's not something he ever learned about, unless you count when he was five years old and his mother told him that the water came from God crying because He was afraid of the dark. Even then he thought it was sort of an odd answer.

His mother had just been like that.

Yellow light is slipping over the treeline now, bathing patches here and there around them in glowing shades of almost-green, almost-orange. The air smells like the last breath of green before the frost.

He doesn't know where they are. They've been driving for so long it could be almost anywhere, and he's notoriously bad at paying attention to road signs. They've left everything behind, left all their acquaintances and so-called friends and the familiar city-scape behind in trade for interstates and highways, mountains and deserts and fields.

So far away from home, with so much land and so many nights between there and here, he finds that he's hesitant to use his own name—like that could pop the bubble, as if it would kill the dream that he's been slowly pumping life into, little by little, one day at a time.

Time's made the moment fuzzy, overexposed. Now, with the miles between here and there, the whole thing seems so inevitable that it's hard to even be sure why they did it. One minute it was August and Edgar was preparing his notes for another year, the next he was loading up the Acura with a good chunk of their earthly possessions. It was supposed to be revenge, he thinks. Why does anybody run away from home, anyways? He was a little kid shaking his fist at the front door, stomping his foot in the driveway, _I'll show you._

If he hadn't been so _angry,_ he could have just called up some acquaintances and started looking for a new job. Really.

But what he'd told Jimmy was right, you have to be looking out for miracles. At the risk of sounding like somebody's overbearing Presbyterian grandmother, he was pretty sure God had a plan for him.

Miracles are internal. They don't come in flaming chariots sweeping across the sky or a wad of cash falling out of the sky. He remembers, somewhere in the middle of the Californian mountains, being suddenly struck with the fact that he was alive, bowled over and almost brought to his metaphorical knees by the realization that he was breathing and that his heart was beating, that it could all change so quickly and the world was _beautiful_. He's never understood it before. He'd known, intellectually, he'd even made a bid at being grateful for it—

But that early August morning, in a snapshot second he had _understood_. And he had realized how wide the sky was and how endless, just like all the songs said, and he realized he hadn't seen more than an inch of it in twenty-seven years, and supposed he died tomorrow or the next day, how little would he have known? How little would he have lived?

So he'd shaken the kid awake, roused him from the grateful sleep of the casual migrant worker and tried to explain everything to him. How quickly you could die and how amazing it was that you were alive, and how amazingly infinite the world had to be.

Jimmy didn't get it. But that was just Jimmy, he was a prosaic sort of guy when you got down to it, although he'd made a fair bid at the kind of overdramatic poetry you expected from the black-nail-polish set. But that was the thing about Jimmy: he didn't get it, but he listened anyways.

He was always on board.

This was _their_ project. While Edgar had gathered up his savings, the kid conned some money off his dad; they gathered up suitcases full of protein bars and cheezits and wine, found a sort of half-tent for sale at the Walmart and carried it back to his apartment. He looked at local area maps and then stuffed them unceremoniously into the glove-compartment—maps were for people who had A Place to Go.

The kid stayed over at his place while they put it all together, taking up the quest with whole-hearted enthusiasm. After all, he'd tried to run away from home once, a year before, and Edgar supposed that now he finally had his chance.

They stayed in hotels when they could find them cheap enough, where they shared a room and usually a bed, and Edgar brought his own sheets just in case. Neither of them said anything about the shared beds, or the way they woke up so many mornings curled together into one shape, with Edgar's arms wrapped loosely around his companion.

Sometimes—a lot of times—they slept in the countryside, tarp staked into a low roof to keep the possibility of rain away. Those were nights with stars and far away silhouettes of trees, lately cold and shared beneath two blankets, sometimes three. He knew, intellectually, that it was dangerous to sleep like this—exposed to the elements and mankind too, which is often more dangerous—but that was sort of becoming the point too, to bring himself close to the edge of life and death and the world, where the three met and created something old and strange.

Jimmy told him, somewhere in mid-september, that he was surprised it had gone on this long—he'd expected Edgar to go running home at the sight of the first cheap hotel, and then at the first flat tire, and then at the first cold night, and then at the first midnight when Jimmy reached out and pressed himself into Edgar's body without a sound, twining their hands together, and Edgar said nothing.

But no.

It couldn't end just yet. Not when they had only seen a corner of the world, and there was still so much more to see. Mountains, cold granite monoliths and wide stone hills; oceans, blue-green in the sunlight and black with falling night, white sand and yellow sand and beaches of tiny round pebbles; plains, and prairies, and savannas. There were swamps in Louisiana, where you could really believe that vampires had lived hidden for three hundred years, and plantations in Florida that his mother had told him about as a child, painting them the last mysterious corners of the native woods.

He couldn't give up now.

His cell phone had rung for the first time in months when they were unpacking sheets in a hotel room in Tennessee. It startled him, frankly. He'd almost forgotten the thing had a purpose. He flipped it open and sat down on the corner of the uncovered mattress.

"Edgar Vargas speaking," he said, frowning. He'd taken care of all his bills, so unless it was the police reporting a break-in…

"Hello Mr. Vargas," a clipped female voice began, "this is Jenny Saide with the educational inquiry department."

"Oh." Edgar ran a hand through his hair and mouthed "investigation" at Jimmy, who was making grabby _tell me_ motions. "Yes. Was there some kind of paperwork I was supposed to file? The investigators told me they had everything… covered."

"Actually," the voice hummed, noncommittal, "that's just the thing. Your paperwork is all unfinished and unfiled. We have a standing policy of terminating any cases unfinished after sixty days, and since there's no one left in the department to close it up—"

"No one left in the department?" Edgar interrupted, floored, "what do you mean no one left in the department? Did it get cut?"

"Well," the woman started, hesitant. "In a. A manner of speaking I suppose."

"That doesn't _actually_ clear anything up, ma'am."

Silence.

"Ma'am?"

A breath. "Mr. Vargas, this is, you understand, not to be repeated. The police haven't actually released the details to the public."

"I'm currently hundreds of miles from home, honestly, I couldn't leak it if I wanted to."

"Hm. About two months ago, the department was having a lunch meeting at Uncle Chokey's Chicken House to foster _compatible synergy_, and according to witnesses—my associate was there too, at a different table—one of the investigators got into an argument with a stranger over soda brand loyalty. The conflict escalated, as these kinds of conflicts often do, and the entire department was slaughtered right there over their dinner plates. Well, naturally, the Bureau of Education knows when to take a hint, and with budget cutting season right around the corner, we thought it would be wisest to simply prune off that branch and save pennies where we could."

Edgar's mouth flapped stupidly for a couple seconds before he managed, "You. They were all murdered? Every one of them?"

Jimmy's background litany of _whatwhatwhatwhat'sgoingontellmewhowas?_ went ignored.

"Afraid so. It's probably the biggest mass murder since the café last fall, and there wasn't even a bomb. So, anyhow, that's that. Now we're just going through the investigation files to let people know the cases are being dropped. We can't possibly submit paperwork that hasn't been double registered with the department head, and considering he was buried as per his instruction with his timestamp, we're content to leave well enough alone."

"I… well. I appreciate the call."

"You're welcome," the voice replied, businesslike as ever. "If you're on the run, you might as well come home now. The police aren't interested in unfiled paperwork. Have a pleasant evening."

And then she hung up.

Edgar stared at the phone for a long time, until its little glowing patch of a screen went dark and the faint buzzing in his ears solidified into Jimmy's incessant _EdgarEdgarEdgar._

"Hm?" he inquired, dazed.

"What happened, man?" Jimmy demanded, dropping like a sack of bricks onto the mattress. "They pullin' some legal shit on you? Cause we can take 'em, I used to know a guy in New York who could snap out some papers for you in ten seconds flat—"

"They dropped it."

"—I mean I dunno how much it would cost but. Wait, what? Who dropped what?"

"The case, Jimmy. They dropped the case. Our case."

Jimmy squinted at him. "Our… y'mean, they dropped _our_ case?"

"Yes!" Edgar answered, and this weightless kind of relief hit him so hard he nearly reeled. "Our case! We're free, _I'm_ free!"

A wild, perfect grin split Jimmy's lips like lightening, and he grabbed Edgar's shoulders hard enough to bruise. "Fuck yes! Holy fuckin' hell, what even happened?"

"Some wackjob killed the whole department! No, well, I don't mean to sound so happy about it, it's terribly that all those people died over a random soda argument and I really will have to send flowers or something but Jimmy I'm _free!"_

"Wow," the younger man said, eyebrows flying up. "Won't say Johnny never did us any favors, I guess."

"What?"

"Nothin'."

"God almighty I'm so happy I could just… I could even…"

Jimmy blinked at him, waiting for the sentence to finish somehow, and it was just so perfect and everything was perfect and he just grabbed Jimmy by the back of the head and pulled him into a sloppy, graceless kiss.

_Yes._

"Whoa," his companion said, eventually, after Edgar finally regained a handle on his sense of shame and backed off. "That was pretty cool. Unexpected, but cool. Alright so, we're fuckin' tonight, right? Please tell me we're fucking."

"Nope, sorry. We are not." Edgar grinned at him.

"Right, what was I thinkin'?" And Jimmy pulled a face, this almost-bitter, dissapointed downturned mouth, and suddenly Edgar felt his own grin slipping. Ouch. That looked... legitimatey painful, somehow, and this phantom sinking sensation shifted through his gut. An old question clawed its way to the top of his thoughts; is it worse to let him do it, or do nothing in return?

He considered it for a moment, unmoving in his ungainly arch over the slightly taller man.

"After all," he added, finally, after the last figurative echoes of his previous statement had faded into a faint buzz, "we haven't been dating long enough."

"Yeah, yeah... Wait up, shit, I know you're messin' with me now. Since when were we datin'?"

Edgar cocked his head. "Since I told you we were."

"When… But... you were drunk?"

"I make lots of important decisions while in various states of intoxication. It's one of my many flaws."

Jimmy just looked at him, uncomprehending. A pit of unease started to gather in Edgar's stomach—surely he knew? They were officially fucking the police, weren't they? Oh, but of course he wouldn't know, hell, _Edgar_ wasn't even certain what he was talking about. It would just be so much _easier_ if Jimmy could read his mind, if he didn't have to go about putting these muddied, flooding emotions into coherent sentences.

Well would you look at that, his cowardice was showing.

Forget _that._

"I love you," Edgar said, swallowing down a lot of pointless nervousness that really had no business being here. "Like… I love you in so many ways it might actually be unhealthy. Anything you want, you've got it."

"I…" the younger man started, and then must have promptly lost the handle on the sentence he was working out because he gave up and knocked Edgar backwards onto the bed. "I wanna sleep with you."

Eyebrows went up. "Whoa whoa whoa. That's not exactly what I was talking about. See, that was me attempting a cliché romantic declaration and _Jesus Jimmy watch your hands!"_

"Come on," Jimmy was grinning, "I have waited way too fuckin' long for this opportunity, no way in hell I'm backin' off now."

Edgar did his best to wedge an elbow in between his chest and Jimmy's collarbone. "Please, seriously, Jimmy get off, I mean I really do love you and everything but hoo _wow that's aggressive_ I'm still dealing with some really complicated crises of conscience and_ —Jesus—_ this motel is filthy!"

"Dude, how are you such a cockblock?"

"It—" Edgar wrestled off a wandering hand, "—probably has something to do with my upbringing?"

"Fuck your upbringing man, your upbringin's gonna need a fucking blindfold for all the x rated shit I'm about to do to it."

"Um, wow. Jimmy, Jimmy, please watch your hands I'm not kid—oh my _god_."

"Yes!"

After a lot of struggling and just as many pointed elbows as wildly over-familiar hands, Edgar finally managed to get his companion pinned to the mattress and generally under control, give or take a few kicks. The two of them panted into the warm space where one breath met its mirror.

"So," Jimmy breathed, grin fading at the corners, "does this mean we're packin' up our lawless vagabond shit?"

Edgar ran a thumb over the side of Jimmy's hand, following the blunt curve where thumb met palm. The skin was thin and pale, traced in lines so thin it was a wonder you could even see them. He could do this. He could do this, and he did not give a fuck what anyone would say about it.

"Not yet," he answered, smiling, "I mean. We haven't even seen Louisiana. Why would we go home now?"

And then his glasses slipped off one ear, and he had to let go of a wrist to catch them, and Jimmy took the opportunity to knock him flat ass off the bed.

-x-

So Edgar wakes up, here, this morning, in a field somewhere in the southern heart of autumn. They've pushed harder, if anything, since that night in the Tennessee motel, because the skies are wide and the land is endless and knowing that he has somewhere to go back to, when the time is right, makes Edgar want to move faster—work harder, do better—before the old world catches up with him again.

There's something about this that feels right, him and Jimmy and the unquantifiable mysteries waiting down every new mile. Like they were made for this. From this. He keeps checking the street signs, almost surprised to find them each with a different name, an unfamiliar label. It almost feels like déjà vu: a whole world of bright, glittering promises and little victories. An adventure, really.

This morning, he thinks that they're perhaps in Georgia. The accents are slow and sweet, and the forests have the young, green look of southern states. He pulled the tarmac away, a few minutes ago, and now the two of them lie on wet grass looking into the shadowy depths of the woods and the white-burning sky, and the frosted field around them. This is what he wants.

He knows that in a few minutes, he'll have to get up and grab a water bottle, and clean up for a day in the nearest town—he knows that this isn't everything in life, just a small piece of it, and there's more still ahead, but…

But right now, he can see himself from a distance, watching like an observer as he reaches out and takes the kid's hand, as the kid intertwines their fingers and looks up at the sunrise—and he thinks that he could probably die happy now, knowing that they've come this far and he's never given up, even once.

And they'll see it all.

(END)


End file.
